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GERMANY   IN   TRAVAIL 


GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 


BY 


OTTO    MANTHEY-ZORN 

PROFESSOR  OF   GERMAN,   AMHERST   COLLEGE 


BOSTON 

MARSHALL  JONES   COMPANY 

1922 


COPYRIGHT-I922-BY 
MARSHALL    JONES    COMPANY 


THE    PLIMPTON    PRESS  •NORWOOD  'MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED-IN-THE-  UNITED-  STATES-    OF  -AMERICA 


2HT 

M 


FOREWORD 

IN  THE  summer  of  1920  Amherst  College  granted  me  a 
leave  of  absence  until  January,  192 1,  to  go  to  Germany 
and  attempt  to  analyse  the  state  of  mind  in  which  the 
Germans  were  facing  the  conditions  and  problems  resulting 
from  defeat  and  the  revolution. 

As  chance  would  have  it,  the  summer  and  fall  of  1920  were 
unusually  opportune  for  such  a  study.  The  logic  of  events 
culminating  in  the  conference  at  Spa  had  finally  made  the 
Germans  begin  to  realize  the  extent  of  their  defeat  and  of  their 
obligations.  An  ever  greater  number  were  beginning  to  see 
the  futility  of  wilful  blindness  or  resentment,  and  coming 
to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  better  to  face  conditions  and 
seek  a  way  of  meeting  them.  Also  the  mere  economic  situa- 
tion did  not  seem  as  hopeless  to  the  Germans  as  it  does  today. 
Work  was  beginning  to  be  generally  resumed.  The  mark  had 
depreciated  until  its  value  was  about  two  cents,  but  compen- 
sation for  most  grades  of  work  and  returns  on  most  varieties 
of  investments  had  risen  in  proportion  to  the  mark's  fall.  The 
purchasing  value  of  the  mark  within  Germany  was  then  only  a 
shade  above  its  actual  value  on  the  world  market.  The  entire 
social  fabric  seemed  to  be  organizing  itself  upon  a  basis  ap- 
proximating the  actual  economic  condition  of  the  country. 

Everything  below  the  surface,  to  be  sure,  politics  and  the 
whole  spiritual  life  of  the  country,  was  as  chaotic  as  it  is 
today.  But  the  momentary  physical  and  economic  relief  gave 
some  real  impetus  toward  an  attempt  at  broad  reconstruction, 
and  made  it  possible  for  an  observer  to  get  an  idea  of  the 
direction  the  reconstruction  will  ultimately  take,  the  principles 
that  have  a  chance  to  survive  through  the  process,  and  the 


9is?;. 


VI 


FOREWORD 


spiritual  resources  which,  released  by  the  revolution,  will  give 
those  principles  the  necessary  force. 

My  chief  concern  was  the  study  of  these  spiritual  forces. 
These  may  indeed  manifest  themselves  in  any  of  the  larger 
fields  of  activity:  in  economics  and  politics,  religion,  education, 
or  in  art.     I  am  not  a  student  of  economics  or  of  politics.    My 
investigations  in  this  field  were  merely  to  test  the  state  of 
mind  with  which  the  people  were  meeting  the  political  situa- 
tion, and  the  spiritual  attitude  they  assumed  to  the  supreme 
economic  problem  of  their  daily  bread.     I  found  a  situation 
so  confused  and  so  threatened  by  distress  and  passion,  that 
positive  spiritual  forces  were  exerting  no  influence  over  it 
as  yet.     I  have  not  dared  to  venture  upon  a  description  of  the 
religious   life   of  new   Germany.     There  were   evidences   of 
changes  that  may  in  time  have  large  importance,  but  they  do 
not  lend  themselves  to  either  fair  or  adequate  treatment.    The 
institutional  church  of  Germany  had  allowed  itself  to  become 
so  entirely  a  part  of  the  state  that,  when  the  latter  fell,  a  full 
share  of  the  discredit  rested  upon  the  church.     The  laws  of 
the  new  government,  intended  to  guarantee  a  greater  freedom 
to  religious  expression,  could  do  little  to  produce  a  new  spirit. 
Whatever  attempts  at  organized  expression  of  a  renewed  re- 
ligious spirit  I  could  find  were  quite  apart  from  the  church  and 
so  vague  that  any  description  would  lead  to  false  impressions. 
In  liberal  education  a  new  spirit  is  calmly  exerting  itself  and  is 
squarely  and  bravely  meeting  the  new  conditions.     My  main 
interest,  however,  is  centered  upon  the  mind  and  spirit  of  men 
and  peoples  as  expressed  in  literature,  and  upon  the  spiritual 
forces  that  men  and  peoples  evidence  in  their  attitude  to  the 
great  expressions  of  literature. 

In  teaching  German  literature  the  question  of  the  relation  of 
the  drama  to  the  ruling  principles  and  forces  of  life  is  con- 
stantly brought  into  the  foreground.  The  drama  is  considered 
by  most  German  authors  and  critics  to  be  the  highest  form  of 
literary  expression.  Even  the  ordinary  theater-goer  has  a  pe- 
culiar reverence  for  what  the  German  calls  a  drama  as  distin- 
guished from  a  play,  and  he  considers  sacrilegious  any  attempt 


FOREWORD  vii 

to  make  the  drama  a  mere  form  of  entertainment  or  a  source  of 
profit.  The  object  of  the  dramatist  is  to  create  in  his  characters 
living  men,  who  embody,  or  come  into  conflict  with,  the  funda- 
mental forces  of  life.  The  German  dramatist  must  have  not 
only  the  ability  to  see  and  express  such  forces,  but  also  a  suffi- 
ciently strong  faith  in  the  possession  of  them  by  man  to  make 
the  drama  convincing.  Where  such  faith  is  lacking,  the 
dramatist  is  expected  to  show  at  least  a  strong  longing  for  it. 
The  German  audience,  by  national  habit,  is  constantly  looking 
for  evidence  of  this  faith  in  the  great  characters  before  it,  in 
order  that  each  hearer  may  acquire  an  insight  into  the  funda- 
mentals of  his  own  life. 

The  question  often  arose  in  my  classes,  whether  this  was 
really  a  guiding  principle  of  the  German  drama.  Therefore, 
when  the  opportunity  came  to  test  this  thesis,  by  observing 
dramatist  and  stage  and  audience  in  a  serious  crisis,  I  was  glad 
to  seize  upon  it.  My  leave  of  absence  gave  me  the  opportunity 
which  rarely  comes  to  a  student  of  literature:  to  test  in  the 
reality  of  actual  events  the  statements  concerning  the  German 
drama  which  I  had  taught  in  my  classes.  If,  in  the  emergency, 
dramatists  could  be  found  attempting  to  express  faith,  or  at 
least  a  strong  longing  for  faith,  in  a  new  German  character,  if 
audiences  could  be  found  eagerly  searching  the  dramas  for  a 
faith  to  serve  as  a  basis  for  individual  and  national  recon- 
struction, then  an  important  question  in  the  study  of  the 
German  drama  would  be  answered,  and  it  would  be  possible 
to  determine  the  state  of  mind  which  has  the  greatest  chance 
of  outlasting  the  present  crisis  and  ultimately  controlling 
reconstruction. 

I  devoted  the  largest  part  of  my  investigation  to  the  situation 
in  Berlin  and  Munich,  because  these  cities  are  the  most  active 
and  dominating  centers  of  Germany,  and  because  they  are  most 
opposed  to  one  another  in  purpose  and  method.  I  went  to 
Weimar  to  observe  the  interesting  attempt  to  reestablish  its 
traditional  spiritual  leadership.  Such  other  German  cities  as  I 
visited,  among  them  Hamburg,  Hannover  and  Leipzig,  were  in 
the  main  following  the  lead  of  Berlin  and  Weimar.     They 


' 


viii  FOREWORD 

were  important  simply  in  their  special  interpretation  of  the 
forces  emanating  from  these  centers.  In  Salzburg,  I  witnessed 
a  strong  concerted  effort  by  the  leaders  of  Austria  to  devise  a 
program  of  spiritual  reconstruction  by  enlisting  the  power  of 
art  in  saving  what  remains  of  the  country. 

The  first  result  that  I  must  record  is  purely  negative:  not 
one  of  the  poets,  old  or  new,  has  enough  faith  or  enough 
insight  in  redeeming  forces  to  be  able  to  express  such  faith 
clearly,  or  to  present  it  to  the  people  with  strong  conviction. 
It  is  encouraging,  however,  to  note  that  the  foremost  poets  of 
the  nation  are  not  giving  themselves  over  to  despondency,  but 
are  trying  to  rise  above  the  confusion  and  to  calm  the  disturbed 
spirits  of  the  people,  hoping  that  serenity  will  give  them  light 
and  insight.  A  similar  longing  to  prepare  the  way  for  faith 
in  a  new  spirit  governs  the  ventures  of  Weimar  and  Salzburg. 
The  most  important  discovery,  however,  is  that  there  has  arisen 
throughout  Germany  a  new  audience  which  has  developed  a 
strong  consciousness  of  the  relation  of  the  drama  to  personal 
and  national  character.  In  it  are  the  people  who  are  facing 
the  vast  responsibilities  arising  out  of  the  revolution  and  are 
seeking  for  standards  with  which  to  judge  them.  They  are 
convinced,  moreover,  that  they  cannot  find  such  standards 
unless  they  know  themselves  and  the  fundamental  national 
forces  of  which  they  are  a  part.  They  believe  that  they  can 
gain  this  knowledge  by  studying  the  characters  of  the  great 
dramas  of  their  past  and  by  encouraging  the  better  drama- 
tists of  their  own  time  to  help  them  search.  For  this  purpose 
they  have  organized  powerful  drama  leagues. 

It  proved  impossible  to  treat  this  audience  merely  in  its 
relation  to  the  drama  and  the  theatre.  The  same  people  con- 
stitute that  calm  progressive  element  among  the  Democrats 
and  Majority  Socialists  which  is  comparatively  free  from  the 
general  political  confusion.  The  organizations  for  popular 
liberal  education  are  composed  almost  entirely  of  these  same 
people,  and  are  able  to  maintain  their  strongly  liberal,  non- 
vocational  character  because  of  the  high  standards  these  men 
attain  through  their  relation  to  art. 


FOREWORD  ix 

Because  this  new  audience  is  still  in  the  making,  and  its 
position  within  German  life  is  far  from  being  fully  established 
or  recognized,  the  description  of  its  activity  is  constantly  inter- 
rupted by  personal  interpretations.  The  results  derive  a  con- 
siderable degree  of  certainty,  however,  from  the  fact  that  the 
activity  of  this  group,  especially  in  its  relation  to  the  drama, 
is  not  altogether  new.  The  revolution  has  given  it  the  first 
real  opportunity  and  has  enormously  increased  its  size;  but 
the  history  of  its  growth  goes  far  enough  back  into  German 
life  to  establish  its  permanency  with  some  degree  of  assurance. 

That  which  most  impresses  the  observer  with  the  power  of 
this  group,  and  gives  him  reason  to  believe  that  its  standards 
will  be  those  that  ultimately  will  prevail  in  the  process  of  re- 
construction, is  the  extreme  patience  it  shows  in  the  search 
for  standards  and  its  serenity  in  the  presence  of  the  country's 
chaos. 

Otto  Manthey-Zorn 

Amherst  College 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Foreword v 

I.  The  Struggle  with  Confusion 3 

II.  Education,  Old  and  New 30 

III.  Youth  in  Revolt 46 

IV.  The  People  of  Berlin  and  Their  Theatre      .    .  60 
V.  Weimar 95 

VI.  The  Mind  of  Bavaria 109 

VII.  Austria's  Dream 124 

A  Final  Word 132 

Index 137 


1X1 


GERMANY   IN  TRAVAIL 


GERMANY  IN  TRAVAIL 


THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  CONFUSION 


DO  THEY  repent?"  No  other  question  was  so  in- 
cessantly put  to  me  upon  my  return  from  five  months 
travel  through  defeated  Germany.  In  most  instances 
it  was  the  expression  of  a  sincere  desire  to  win  back  the  faith 
in  humankind  that  the  sight  of  Germany  in  war  had  rudely 
shaken.  To  people  of  this  frame  of  mind  the  visible  repent- 
ance of  the  German  people  is  as  necessary  a  condition  to  an 
honest  renewal  of  relations  as  the  penitence  of  a  serious  trans- 
gressor in  their  own  midst.  The  more  definite  their  code  of 
morals,  the  more  insistent  are  they  on  the  confessions  of  the 
sinner  and  the  more  prepared  to  receive  him  back  within  the 
fold,  if  he  repent.  Others  who  asked  the  same  question  nerv- 
ously hoped  for  a  negative  answer.  They  had  enjoyed  to  the 
full  the  hatreds  of  the  war  and  the  sense  of  superiority  it  gave 
them,  or  even  the  opportunities  for  material  and  spiritual  profit- 
eering, and  now  feared  that  they  might  lose  their  advantage. 
But  there  is  no  definite  answer  to  this  prevailing  question. 

The  German  nation  is  not  down  upon  its  knees  before  the 
other  nations  of  the  world.  The  sight  of  its  defeat  is  horrible 
enough.  The  pillorying  of  defeated  sinners  is  a  spectacle  that 
human  justice  craves  and  victors  always  demand.  But  to  see 
a  whole  nation  prostrate  before  its  fellow  nations  to  confess  its 
sins,  is  a  horror  that  becomes  almost  unendurable,  even  as  you 
only  visualize  it  in  presence  of  the  spiritual  disintegrations  of 
"  unrepentant "  defeat.  You  feel  that  the  kneeling,  if  it  were 
sincere,  might  well  be  a  symptom  of  a  disease  so  serious  as  to 

3 


4  GERMANT  IN   TRAVAIL 

seem  incurable.    The  legend  of  the  Prodigal  Son  is  incom- 
plete without  the  character  of  the  father. 

The  German  nation  is  repentant,  however,  in  that  it  has 
turned  against  those  men  and  thoughts  that  ruled  it  in  the 
disastrous  days  before  the  war.  This  repentance  is  the  more 
sincere  in  that  the  German  people  have  turned  against  former 
thoughts  more  than  against  the  men  whom  their  peculiar 
system  had  made  their  rulers  and,  as  such,  executors  of  these 
thoughts.  The  princes  are  in  exile  and  are  easily  forgotten 
by  the  great  majority.  Their  replacement  is  a  matter  of 
political  readjustment  which  can  be  organized  with  time  and 
studious  application  and  popular  good  will.  The  revolt  against 
former  habits  of  thought  is  a  more  serious  affair.  Those  men 
who  think  at  all  now  find  that  they  can  no  longer  trust  the 
standards  by  which  their  thoughts  were  once  directed.  They 
find  that  the  standards  by  which  they  judged  their  most  inti- 
mate actions,  their  relations  to  their  fellowmen,  their  attitude 
to  the  state  and  even  to  the  church,  were  not  genuinely  theirs 
in  the  sense  of  being  instinctive,  but  were  artificially  imposed 
upon  them  by  a  strange,  mighty,  selfish  force  that  suddenly 
exploded  in  its  last  burst  of  overbearance.  Now  they  must 
seek  new  standards  by  searching  for  those  spiritual  powers 
that  are  genuinely  their  own. 


What  with  defeat  and  economic  and  political  hardships, 
however,  the  times  are  not  conducive  to  this  most  difficult 
and  delicate  spiritual  task.  Defeat  has  thrown  most  Germans 
into  a  confusion  which,  however  explicable,  arouses  the  disgust 
one  feels  on  seeing  men  becoming  hysterical  in  face  of  sudden 
disaster.  They  have  lost  faith  in  themselves  and  in  the  exist- 
ence of  fair  play  anywhere.  They  hate  the  old  regime  that 
brought  them  into  competition  and  war,  just  as  they  hate  the 
thing  that  brought  on  their  revolution  and,  as  they  see  it,  dis- 
order and  uncertainty.  They  impatiently  distrust  the  men 
who  offer  a  remedy  for  their  misery.    They  close  their  eyes 


THE   STRUGGLE   WITH   CONFUSION  5 

and  clench  their  teeth  and  try  to  live  as  best  they  can  from 
day  to  day.  If  they  have  money,  piles  of  it,  they  spend  it  madly 
and  try  only  to  avoid  the  actual  clutches  of  the  law.  This 
money,  they  say,  is  no  good  anyway;  it  is  only  bulky  paper 
that  will  at  best  buy  nothing  but  narcotics.  So  why  not  live 
and  get  drunk  on  drink  and  food  and  jewels  and  excitement? 
If  they  have  no  money,  they  close  their  eyes  and  tighten  their 
belts  and  dream.  They  dream  their  pet  political  and  social 
theories  and  philosophies;  but  always  with  their  eyes  tightly 
closed  to  conditions  as  they  really  are.  Any  excess  is  good, 
if  only  the  dream  be  colorful  enough  and  take  them  far 
enough  away  from  actual  conditions.  Those  who  are  not  rich 
enough  to  live  to  excess,  or  refined  enough  to  dream  to  excess, 
exhaust  themselves  in  despair  and  hatred  and  gloomiest  apathy. 
And  then  a  large  part  merely  starves. 

The  disintegrating  force  of  this  confusion  is  clearly  illus- 
trated by  the  mere  struggle  for  daily  food.  Partly  out  of  a 
desire  to  supply  all  the  people  with  at  least  a  scant  minimum, 
but  partly  also  as  a  most  powerful  bid  for  popularity,  the 
government  has  framed  laws  for  the  distribution  of  food.  It  is 
able  to  enforce  them  to  only  a  very  small  extent,  however.  The 
situation  of  the  country  probably  demands  that  these  laws 
be  as  stringent  as  they  are,  but  faithful  observance  of  them  ^ 
would  put  everybody  upon  starvation  rations.  Consequently 
no  one  with  money  enough  to  pay  the  price  demanded  by  the 
illicit  trade  will  hesitate  to  break  the  law.  If  his  conscience 
troubles  him,  he  quiets  it  by  saying  to  himself  that,  after  all, 
the  government  is  merely  a  makeshift  as  yet  and  not  one  in 
which  he  can  place  his  faith,  and  that  its  laws  are  therefore 
not  sacred.  Food-profiteering  is  consequently  one  of  the  most 
flourishing  occupations.  In  the  summer  of  1920  complaints 
against  the  profiteering  by  the  hotels  of  Berlin  became  so 
persistent  that  the  government  was  obliged  to  take  action. 
The  proprietors  threatened  to  close  down  if  the  demands  were 
insisted  upon,  and  the  government  had  to  yield.  This  same 
situation  has  made  the  farmer  secretive  and  extorting.  He 
gives  deceitful  answers  to  the  government  officials  who  come  to 


6  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

take  an  inventory  of  his  crops,  and  instead  of  bringing  his 
food  to  market  he  sits  at  home  to  pass  upon  the  bids  and 
entreaties  of  the  wealthy  who  come  to  him.  He  represents 
the  latest  and  largest  class  of  war  profiteers.  Whoever  can 
afford  it,  is  his  willing  victim.  Even  in  the  smaller  cities, 
where  almost  every  family  has  a  back-yard  garden,  the  wor- 
ship of  the  new  beast-god,  the  "  hamster  "  or  German  chip- 
munk, is  more  universal  than  ever  was  the  popularity  of  the 
"  blond  beast "  in  Germany's  wildest  hour.  Several  times 
a  week  each  family  sends  a  delegate  out  to  the  farm  to  play 
the  "  hamster,"  to  gather  in  by  begging  and  buying  at  any 
price  what  eggs  or  butter  or  other  produce  can  be  obtained. 
"  To  go  hamstering  "  is  the  most  popular  of  the  new  expressions 
that  the  times  have  added  to  the  German  language.  The 
poor  in  every  class  of  society,  whose  scant  rations  taste  all 
the  more  bitter  because  they  cannot  take  part  in  this  new 
illicit  national  sport,  waste  themselves  in  futile  anger  and 
vainly  threaten  to  emulate  the  Russian  example  and  organize 
raids  on  the  farmers.  It  is  not  in  the  German  character  to 
indulge  in  such  an  extreme  disregard  for  authority;  but  at 
present  the  respect  for  law  is  dormant. 

As  in  the  search  for  food,  so  in  most  economic  questions 
dire  need  and  greed  confuse  the  problem  and  upset  the  minds 
of  the  people.  It  seems  improbable  that  these  situations  will 
be  squarely  met  or  adequate  solutions  will  be  found,  until  the 
people  examine  themselves  and,  on  the  basis  of  such  an  exami- 
nation, clear  the  confusion  of  their  minds  and  find  a  new  faith 
to  rise  again  above  the  stage  of  mere  animal  existence. 


in 

The  efforts  toward  political  readjustment  are  beset  with 
equal  distress,  and  present  as  little  chance  for  the  thorough 
examination  and  the  calm  and  patient  application  necessary 
to  revise  old  standards  or  search  for  new  ones.  Not  a  single 
one  of  the  broader  national  movements  that  seek  to  make 
adjustments  to  the  new  conditions  presents  a  clear  outline. 


THE   STRUGGLE   WITH   CONFUSION  7 

The  revolution  itself  appears  to  have  been  an  outburst  of 
uncontrollable  natural  forces  rather  than  the  expression  of  any 
large  popular  will.  It  seems  simply  to  have  been  the  inevi- 
table result  of  an  unsuccessful  war  waged  for  four  years  on 
the  basis  of  general  conscription.  Most  Germans  now  admit 
that  their  army  was  in  a  sadly  demoralized  condition;  but 
conditions  behind  the  lines  during  those  days  seem  to  have 
been  even  less  stable.  The  spirit  of  the  country  had  grown  in- 
creasingly seditious  since  the  impossible  winter  of  191 6,  when 
the  people  were  forced  to  live  on  turnips  and  on  bread  half 
filled  with  sawdust.  The  ghastly  pallor  that  that  winter 
placed  upon  the  faces  of  the  children  was  too  strong  a  com- 
petitor to  the  frantic  exhortation  of  the  military  authorities 
to  carry  on.  At  the  first  undeniable  evidence  of  defeat  the 
country  broke  down  from  sheer  exhaustion,  and  the  revolution 
that  followed  was  due  to  this  rather  than  to  the  American 
demands  for  democratization  or  to  the  agitation  of  the  German 
Socialists. 

The  Socialists  took  control,  merely  because  they  were  the 
only  organized  body  that  was  prepared  even  theoretically  for 
the  emergency.  Many  of  them  were  well-intentioned,  a  few 
were  able,  but  the  great  majority  were  inexperienced  and  in- 
competent. Most  of  the  departments  were  poorly  manned, 
money  was  scarce,  and  disorder  soon  prevailed.  The  chaos 
was  increased  by  a  competition  for  the  highest  places  between 
the  two  principal  factions  of  the  Socialists.  This  competition  , 
was  ended  by  putting  in  charge  of  the  highest  offices  a  repre- 
sentative of  each  of  the  factions,  who  quarreled  with  each  other 
over  every  important  order.  When  this  situation  became  im- 
possible, the  extreme  Left  was  ousted  from  the  government  and 
went  into  opposition.  The  Majority  Socialists  now  had  to 
bear  the  entire  odium  for  the  chaos  of  the  country,  especially 
since  they  held  control  without  legal  sanction.  They  deter- 
mined to  secure  that  sanction  from  the  people  by  issuing  a 
call  for  the  Constituent  Assembly.  From  time  to  time  the 
elections  to  that  assembly  were  postponed,  simply  because  the 
provisional  government  had  no  definite  plan  for  a  constitution. 


8  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

The  helpless  officials  eagerly  seized  upon  some  constructive 
suggestions  which  appeared  in  a  newspaper  article  by  Hugo 
Preuss;  and,  although  Preuss  was  not  a  Socialist  but  a  Demo- 
crat, they  called  upon  him  to  frame  the  constitution.  The 
elections  to  the  assembly  favored  the  liberal  parties,  Majority 
Socialist  and  Democratic.  The  vote  at  these  elections,  how- 
ever, is  construed  in  Germany  today  as  expressing  not  so 
much  a  democratic  conviction  as  a  general  desire  for  law  and 
order  with  which  to  get  under  way. 

The  signing  of  the  treaty  came  in  the  midst  of  the  Con- 
stituent Assembly.  I  asked  several  of  the  men  who  had  been 
most  prominent  in  urging  the  signing  of  that  treaty,  and  each 
one  gave  the  same  answer:  he  was  not  sure  that  he  had  acted 
wisely.  You  cannot  get  a  more  definite  answer  to  any  of  the 
leading  questions  in  Germany  today.  The  condition  of  the 
country  is  still  so  chaotic  that  its  leaders  cannot  see  clearly  or 
have  definite  convictions.  At  the  time  most  Germans  evi- 
dently thought  that  the  treaty  was  largely  a  bluff;  but  they 
were  soon  undeceived.  With  the  resulting  despair  came  a 
strong  wave  of  nationalism  and  a  popular  swing  to  the  Right. 
•  The  people  as  a  whole  quickly  reasoned  that,  since  the  new 
order  was  bringing  confusion  and  oppression,  the  old  order 
must  be  restored.  This  mood  was  encouraged  by  reactionary 
agitators,  who,  as  soon  as  they  had  the  slightest  success,  lost 
their  heads  and  organized  the  stupid  and  criminal  attempt  in 
the  spring  of  1920,  headed  by  Kapp  and  Ludendorff,  to  rein- 
state the  old  regime.  They  acted  too  quickly  and  with  too 
much  of  the  old  Prussian  spirit.  Though  the  Socialist  govern- 
ment at  first  gave  way,  it  soon  managed  to  drive  them  out  again 
by  organizing  a  general  strike  throughout  the  empire.  But 
the  strike  with  its  agitation  was  also  too  violent  a  measure  to 
combat  a  movement  so  little  real.  Within  the  industrial  centers 
of  the  Ruhr  and  Saxony  it  set  in  motion  radical  elements 
which  had  to  be  put  down  by  force.  Because  on  the  one  hand 
the  treaty  in  forbidding  a  militia  required  a  professional  army, 
and  on  the  other  hand  the  government  Socialists  forbade  men 
of  their  party  to  take  up  the  profession  of  soldier,  Noske  was 


THE   STRUGGLE   WITH   CONFUSION  9 

obliged  to  move  against  the  Ruhr  with  a  reactionary  army, 
hostile  to  his  methods.  This  army  answered  red  excesses 
with  white  terror,  and  so  increased  the  confusion  and  the  un- 
popularity of  the  government  in  the  country  at  large. 

In  the  midst  of  this  turmoil  the  campaigning  for  the  elec- 
tions to  the  first  German  Parliament  began.  It  was  merely  an 
insane  clash  of  emotions.  Chauvinism  won  and  put  in  control 
Hugo  Stinnes  and  his  clever  helpers,  who  roughly  represent  the 
biggest  industries  of  Germany.  The  government  bloc  that 
assumed  control  was  clearly  obedient  to  the  wishes  of  Stinnes, 
though  he  himself  kept  in  the  background.  It  was  popularly 
called  the  "  legalized  Kapp  Putsch."  The  defeated  Moderate 
Socialists  went  over  to  the  opposition.  Their  control  and  their 
program  of  socialization  had  utterly  failed.  In  combining 
more  closely  with  the  extreme  Left,  moreover,  they  found  them- 
selves deprived  of  all  convincing  party  propaganda  excepting 
the  cry  of  passion.  So  Germany  today  is  roughly  divided 
into  two  passionately  opposed  camps.  On  the  Left  they  cry: 
"  Down  with  religion  and  the  church  and  capitalism  is  done 
for  and  Utopia  will  come!  "  and  on  the  Right:  "Down  with 
the  Jews,  the  enemies  of  religion  and  the  instigators  to  bolshe- 
vism,  and  order  will  be  restored  and  prosperity  rise  again!" 

Because  of  his  opposition  to  the  reparation  agreement 
Stinnes  withdrew  his  party  from  the  government  in  the  spring 
of  192 1  and  the  Majority  Socialists  half-heartedly  relinquished 
their  opposition.  Thereby  the  dominant  power  within  the 
government  bloc  fell  to  the  lot  of  Germany's  great  neutral 
party,  the  Catholic  Center,  whose  party  program  is  best  de- 
scribed by  the  single  word,  compromise.  To  meet  the  new 
situation  it  characteristically  changed  front.  The  right  wing 
under  Fehrenbach,  which  had  held  to  Stinnes,  surrendered 
the  party  leadership  to  the  more  radical  wing  under  Wirth 
and  Erzberger.  Because  of  the  unpopularity  of  the  decision 
of  the  Entente  in  regard  to  the  division  of  Upper  Silesia,  the 
Wirth  Cabinet  had  to  resign  in  October  192 1.  No  other  way 
could  be  found  to  form  a  government,  however,  than  to  per- 
suade Wirth  again  to  undertake  the  formation  of  a  cabinet. 


io  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

He  succeeded  under  most  curious  circumstances,  which  show 
that  Germany's  progress  toward  political  stability  is  negligible. 
Wirth's  own  party,  the  Center,  and  the  Democrats  permitted 
members  to  join  only  as  individuals,  without  a  guarantee  of 
party  support.  The  Majority  Socialists,  on  the  other  hand, 
rallied  more  closely  to  the  Chancellor  and  even  persuaded  the 
Independent  Socialists  to  abate  their  opposition. 

So  the  whole  political  situation  is  a  brew  of  seething  un- 
certainties. The  reason  lies  partly  in  the  general  confusion 
of  mind  in  Germany,  heightened  by  the  economic  turmoil  of 
the  times.  But  the  awkwardness  of  popular  political  thought 
combined  with  an  unyielding  party  dogmatism  is  even  more 
to  blame.  The  Germans  are  hopeless  dogmatists.  Each  man 
has  his  pet  little  faith  in  his  own  careful  formulation.  Every 
question  you  put  as  to  his  views  on  the  social  or  political,  eco- 
nomic or  cultural  conditions  of  his  country  is  an  occasion  for 
him  to  expound  his  own  philosophy  and  then  violently  to  attack 
the  Treaty  of  Versailles;  but  always  he  will  end  in  an  even  more 
violent  attack  upon  those  of  his  own  countrymen  who  hold 
views  different  from  his  own.  Germany's  greatest  disease 
has  always  been  this  sort  of  dogmatism.  Out  of  it  grew 
German  efficiency  and  superspecialization,  so  lacking  in 
broader  outlook  that  it  could  be  perverted  by  clever  systems  of 
control  to  any  end  whatever.  Today  it  acts  as  the  most  dis- 
turbing obstacle  to  the  process  that  would  restore  some  sort 
of  balance  to  the  national  mind,  suffering  under  the  shock  of 
defeat  and  revolution.  An  examination  of  the  principal  po- 
litical parties  of  Germany  makes  one  inclined  to  agree  with  the 
conviction  of  the  many  earnest  men  whom  I  approached,  that 
Germany's  political  reconstruction  must  wait  upon  a  thorough 
regeneration  of  the  people. 

The  party  of  the  extreme  Right,  the  National  People's  Party 
(all  parties  must  have  a  democratic  name,  of  course),  is  in 
the  control  of  the  old  Junker  crowd  with  its  unabashed  mon- 
archical and  agrarian  political  rhetoric.  Its  members  are 
bombastic  sentimentalists,  none  of  whom  are  able  to  realize 
the  extent  to  which  conditions  in  the  country  have  changed. 


THE   STRUGGLE   WITH   CONFUSION  u 

They  are  conscious,  however,  of  two  political  assets  which 
they  industriously  nourish;  the  traditional  affection  for  a 
divinely  appointed  ruler,  and  among  the  unthinking  the  un- 
bridled passion  of  resentment  against  the  victor.  On  the 
crest  of  the  wave  of  nationalism  which  swept  the  country 
at  the  elections  in  1920  they  managed  to  secure  65  seats. 
Their  immediate  program  is  purely  negative.  They  want  to 
prove  the  impotence  of  the  present  government,  hoping  that  a 
general  confusion  will  make  necessary  a  reinstatement  of  their 
former  "  efficiency."  They  speak  rhetorically  of  a  return  of 
the  old  emperor;  but  if,  as  they  suspect,  the  Hohenzollern 
House  has  permanently  lost  its  cause,  they  would  as  readily 
welcome  the  rule  of  a  Wittelsbach  to  bring  them  and  their 
system  back  to  power.  Since  their  end  is,  according  to  their 
claim,  divinely  inspired,  they  resort  to  any  means  whatever, 
even  to  plotting  in  conjunction  with  the  extreme  Communists. 
Individually  they  are  a  sad  lot.  If  they  have  money,  they  use 
its  power  to  evade  the  laws  and  to  organize  revels,  at  which 
they  try  to  console  themselves  for  the  loss  of  the  extravagant 
court  functions.  If  they  have  no  money,  they  weep  and 
grieve  and  exhaust  their  starved  bodies  with  feasts  of  hating. 
Their  blindness  makes  them  ridiculously  futile.  I  met  one 
of  their  leaders,  after  a  meeting  of  the  party  in  Berlin,  in 
high  spirits  because  a  half  dozen  women  of  the  people  had 
joined  their  ranks  within  a  fortnight.  He  seemed  to  see  the 
entire  city  population  thronging  back  into  the  fold. 

The  German  People's  Party  is  practically  the  creation  of 
Hugo  Stinnes,  the  supreme  industrial  magnate  of  new  Germany. 
Germany  is  full  of  stories  of  the  plots  and  machinations  of 
Hugo  Stinnes.  It  seems  that  his  strangle  hold  upon  a  large 
part  of  German  industry  was  gained  by  the  shrewd  exploita- 
tion of  the  contract  he  made  with  the  government  during  the 
war  to  rob  the  factories  of  Belgium  and  Northern  France.  He 
managed  to  arrange  these  operations  so  that  none  of  the  resti- 
tutions demanded  by  the  treaty  result  in  a  personal  loss  to 
him.  He  is  really  the  uncrowned  ruler  of  the  economic  in- 
stitutions which  the  old  system  had  carefully  developed  for 


12  GERMANY  IN  TRAVAIL 

its  own  purpose  and  for  the  recasting  of  which  the  new  govern- 
ment has  enunciated  radical  principles,  though  it  has  not  been 
able  to  apply  any  of  them  to  an  appreciable  extent.  Stinnes, 
I  am  sure,  is  a  man  interested  in  the  power  of  his  purse  rather 
than  in  the  welfare  of  his  country.  His  entry  into  politics, 
at  the  time  of  the  national  elections  in  1920,  was  an  attempt 
to  find  an  efficient  substitute  for  the  old  deposed  monarchy 
to  act  as  guardian  of  his  treasury.  He  bought  control  wher- 
ever it  was  on  sale.  Forty  per  cent  of  the  German  press  is 
said  to  belong  to  him,  and  his  precautions  went  even  to  the 
extent  of  acquiring  an  interest  in  some  of  the  highly  professional 
critical  journals. 

Before  the  national  elections  the  German  People's  Party 
was  a  rather  insignificant  remnant  of  the  nationalistic,  semi- 
liberal  parties  of  the  old  regime.  By  clever  organization  and 
vigorous  propaganda  Stinnes  secured  61  seats  for  it  in  the 
Reichstag.  Its  program  is  squarely  conservative  along  old 
capitalistic  lines.  Its  appeal  is  in  its  promise  of  a  quick  return 
to  prosperity  and  of  protection  against  attacks  upon  capital 
by  the  Socialists.  It  takes  no  definite  stand  on  the  question 
of  monarchy,  though  it  offers  a  safe  retreat  to  all  those  who 
are  sentimentally  attached  to  the  old  rulers  but  have  not 
the  courage  to  denounce  the  new  constitution  openly.  Conse- 
quently the  German  People's  Party  becomes  the  refuge  of  most 
of  the  small  capitalists  of  the  country,  of  a  large  part  of  the 
petty  bureaucrats  of  the  old  regime,  and  of  most  of  the 
Protestant  teachers  and  preachers.  From  among  the  last 
group  the  rhetoricians  of  the  party  are  recruited,  but  the 
control  and  command  rests  solely  with  Stinnes  and  the 
lieutenants  of  big  industry. 

The  Catholic  Center  is  very  much  the  same  in  size  and 
program  that  it  was  before  the  war.  It  is  a  well-organized, 
highly  disciplined  party,  held  together  by  church  authority  and 
frankly  admitting  and  following  a  policy  of  political  oppor- 
tunism. Its  real  leader  is  said  to  have  been  Matthias 
Erzberger,  often  described  as  the  best  hated  man  in  Germany, 
who  was  under  constant  persecution  from  reactionary  zealots 


THE  STRUGGLE   WITH   CONFUSION  13 

and  was  finally  murdered  on  August  26th,  1921.  Erzberger 
was  a  strong  liberal  and  until  the  elections  of  1920  held  his 
party  sternly  to  the  support  of  the  Majority  Socialists  in  spite 
of  violent  internal  opposition  from  South  German  members. 
Because  these  elections,  however,  expressed  a  decided  popular 
turn  to  the  Right,  he  had  to  relinquish  his  leadership  to  the 
conservative  wing  in  accordance  with  the  established  discipline 
of  his  party.  But  when,  in  the  spring  of  192 1,  Stinnes  refused 
to  let  his  party  approve  of  the  reparation  agreement  and  the 
Majority  Socialists  again  were  forced  to  enter  the  govern- 
ment bloc,  thus  giving  it  a  more  radical  complexion,  Erzberger 
resumed  control.  Though  his  lieutenant,  Dr.  Wirth,  acted 
as  Chancellor,  Erzberger  was  really  the  dominant  force  in  the 
government.  Fear  of  what  he  might  do  probably  maddened 
reactionary  fanatics  into  killing  him. 

The  Democratic  Party  is  another  party  of  compromise.  In 
the  Constituent  Assembly  it  was  very  numerous.  At  that 
time  it  had  received  the  votes  of  all  who  wished  to  confess 
democratic  leanings,  either  because  they  were  sincere  or 
simply  in  order  to  mollify  the  Entente  while  it  was  preparing 
the  treaty.  At  the  last  election  it  secured  only  45  seats,  and 
even  now  its  members  are  not  necessarily  honest  democrats. 
Both  of  the  conservative  parties  and  the  Center  ban  Jews 
from  their  ranks,  so  that  all  Jewish  voters  are  forced  to  join 
one  of  the  Socialist  parties  or  the  Democrats.  As  a  result 
all  conservatives  of  Jewish  extraction  ally  themselves  to  the 
latter  party,  whatever  the  shade  of  their  conservatism;  and 
thus  make  impossible  a  clear  party  program.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  best  idealistic  liberals  and  many  of  the  foremost 
intellectual  leaders  of  the  country  are  members  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  and'  win  a  great  national  respect  for  it  because  of 
their  enlightened  liberalism.  The  most  respected  element  of  the  1 
daily  press  is  in  the  control  of  its  members.  And  yet  its  in- 
fluence is  strangely  weak,  owing  partly  to  its  false  composition 
and  partly  to  the  tragic  circumstance  that  here,  as  everywhere 
in  the  present  crisis,  the  best  idealists  lack  the  power  of  trans- 
lating their  principles  into  practical  action. 


i4  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

The  three  remaining  parties  are  socialistic  labor  parties 
grading  from  mere  progressives  to  extreme  Communists.  This 
general  group  polled  forty-four  per  cent  of  the  26,000,000 
votes  at  the  national  elections  in  1920.  If  it  were  united,  it 
could  easily  sway  the  policy  of  the  country;  but  its  three 
parties  fight  with  each  other  more  dogmatically  even  than  with 
the  parties  to  their  right.  The  old  Majority  Socialists  contain 
most  of  the  skilled  laborers  and  all  the  large  body  of  German 
liberals  who  prefer  the  slight  Marxian  dogmatism  of  this  party 
to  the  political  ineffectiveness  of  the  Democrats.  The  Majority 
Socialists  still  have  no  seats  in  the  Reichstag,  more  than  any 
other  single  party.  Their  program  is  one  of  progressive  social 
and  political  evolution.  They  still  are  Marxian  in  name  and 
still  use  the  vocabulary  of  class  warfare;  but  all  this  appears 
principally  as  party  habit,  developed  through  party  traditions 
and  propaganda.  Occasionally  a  fleeting  hope  of  winning  back 
the  dissenters  into  the  fold  gives  new  strength  to  the  habit. 
But  when  they  actually  inaugurate  laws  for  new  social  and 
political  control,  they  ride  with  fair  command  and  much  care- 
ful reckoning  the  wave  that  is  rolling  Europe  along  to  new 
organizations. 

The  Independent  Socialists  function  principally  as  an  oppo- 
sition party  to  the  Majority  Socialists.  They  have  no  other 
program  than  to  prove  the  older  party  poor  Socialists.  They 
accuse  the  older  party  of  lack  of  class  consciousness  and  claim 
that  it  abuses  the  authority  of  Marx.  Marx  is  the  Bible  of 
all  the  socialistic  parties  in  Germany,  each  claiming  that  it 
alone  reads  and  interprets  him  aright.  Because  the  Independ- 
ent Socialists  have  no  definite  program  of  constructive  action, 
they  do  not  realize  the  responsibility  of  government,  and  there- 
fore engage  in  extravagant  propaganda  of  class  rule,  revo- 
lutionary action  and  full  and  immediate  socialization  of  public 
utilities.  Because  the  Majority  Socialists  were  popularly  held 
responsible  for  the  chaotic  conditions  of  the  provisional  re- 
publican government,  the  Independent  Socialists  had  unex- 
pected success  at  the  elections  of  1920  and  secured  80  seats. 
This  success,  however,  was  little  to  their  advantage,  inasmuch 


THE   STRUGGLE   WITH   CONFUSION  i5 

as  it  united  moderates  with  irreconcilable  extremists.  I  visited 
their  palatial  Berlin  club  rooms  in  the  early  August  of  1920, 
just  at  the  time  when  it  seemed  possible  that  the  Russians 
might  break  through  the  Polish  army  into  Germany  in  an 
attempt  to  spread  the  Bolshevist  revolution  through  Europe. 
But  in  spite  of  the  cynical  glee  of  anticipated  triumph  that 
held  the  party  together  at  the  time,  the  melodramatic  gathering 
of  whispering  groups,  scattered  through  the  rooms,  gave  me 
a  sense  of  the  ludicrous  ineffectiveness  of  these  people.  The 
country  merely  smiled  at  their  extravagant  threats.  At  their 
convention  in  the  fall  of  1920  they  fought  each  other  so  vio- 
lently over  the  party  attitude  to  Lenine's  commandments  of 
the  Third  Internationale  that  the  party  split  and  sixty  per  cent 
of  the  members  went  over  to  the  Communists.  The  remaining 
forty  per  cent  are  moderates  who  would  sacrifice  but  a  shade 
of  party  convictions  if  they  were  to  rejoin  the  original  Majority 
Socialists;  but  party  dogmatism  and  the  comfort  of  irre- 
ponsible  opposition  restrain  them  from  taking  that  step. 

Because  of  this  rift  the  Communist  Party  of  Germany  is  at 
present  of  unwieldy  size.  It  represents  3,200,000  voters.  Its 
program  consists  theoretically  of  allegiance  to  the  Russian 
leadership  in  World  Revolution  and  Dictatorship  of  the  Prole- 
tariat; actually  it  is  a  blind  passion  for  some  radical  change 
which  might  improve  the  personal  fortune  of  the  individual 
members.  Too  many  stories  of  Russian  misery  and  Bolshevist 
misrule  penetrate  into  Germany  to  make  the  desire  for  a 
Russian  alliance,  even  among  the  most  illiterate  and  starving, 
more  than  merely  theoretical.  The  Communist  leaders  are 
of  two  groups.  Some  few  of  them  are  highly  refined  idealistic 
dreamers  and  poets  who  are  able  to  divorce  communistic 
ethics  from  Bolshevist  practice  and  who  revel  in  delightful 
dreams  of  blessed  Utopias.  Because  the  rank  and  file  of 
German  Communists  are  recruited  from  the  most  illiterate 
section  of  the  population,  the  effect  of  these  dreamers  is  not 
so  disintegrating  as  it  otherwise  would  be.  The  other  leaders 
are  demagogues  who  delight  in  their  power  to  sway  the  masses 
as  they  please.    I  spoke  to  some  of  the  most  prominent  and 


1 6  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

found  that  they  had  far  more  ambition  for  political  power 
than  conviction  regarding  the  principles  which  they  hurled  at 
the  confused  minds  of  their  blind  followers.  They  do  not 
hesitate  to  boast  that  they  can  make  these  hungry  unthinking 
people  do  as  they  will. 

Thus  not  one  of  the  German  political  parties  has  convictions 
sufficiently  clear  to  enable  it  to  assume  a  strong  leadership. 
Nor  has  a  single  one  sufficient  strength  in  the  Reichstag  to 
govern  without  compromise  both  to  the  Left  and  Right.  Above 
all  things  the  country  needs  an  education  toward  liberalism. 
If  the  spirit  of  party  dogmatism  can  be  checked,  there  is 
likely  to  be  a  significant  strengthening  of  the  intelligent  pro- 
gressives among  the  Majority  Socialists  and  Democrats. 
Within  this  group  the  constructive  policy  for  the  nation  must 
originate. 

The  chaos  of  the  country  is  still  so  great  and  the  problems 
confronting  it  so  clouded,  that  even  the  clearest  in  this  group 
are  confused  or  fantastic  in  their  views.  I  managed  to  in- 
sinuate myself  into  a  closed  meeting  of  the  Democratic  Party 
just  before  the  opening  of  the  Reichstag  for  its  fall  meeting 
in  1920.  The  principal  speaker  was  Professor  Troeltsch,  con- 
sidered by  many  Germans  of  various  parties  the  strongest  and 
clearest  liberal  in  Germany  today.  He  reviewed  the  course 
of  the  revolution  and  tried  to  find  some  way  out  of  the  chaos. 
His  remedy  was  rather  far-fetched.  He  thought  that  in  order 
to  regain  stability  and  to  win  back  the  respect  of  other  nations, 
Germany  must  for  a  time  organize  on  the  plan  of  a  greater 
Switzerland.  A  new  federation  of  states  should  be  created 
with  Prussia  dismembered,  so  as  to  put  an  end  to  its  hegemony. 
A  decentralized  Germany,  united  by  close  ties,  would  allow 
each  state  to  develop  economically  in  accordance  with  its 
peculiar  resources  and  would  offer  the  only  feasible  remedy 
for  the  financial  chaos.  Under  such  a  scheme  Germany  would 
revert  to  an  agricultural  state  as  far  as  possible;  she  would 
be  able  to  feed  herself,  and,  by  thus  cutting  down  the  neces- 
sity for  many  of  her  imports,  she  would  more  quickly  reestab- 
lish a  trade  balance.    The  excess  industrial  labor  would  be 


THE  STRUGGLE  WITH  CONFUSION  17 

systematically  distributed  to  work  on  farms.  Any  excess  be- 
yond that  would  have  to  emigrate,  but  in  an  organized  way  so  as 
not  to  lose  the  spiritual  connection  at  least  with  the  mother 
country.  A  militia,  he  thought,  recruited  in  large  part  from  the 
farming  classes  would  be  very  effective  in  putting  down  any 
attempts  at  violence  from  radicals  and  reactionaries  alike. 
After  a  lengthy  period  of  recuperation  by  this  method  Germany 
could  again  take  up  her  former  history. 

The  picture  is  too  far  removed  from  probable  events.  The 
discussion  from  the  floor,  however,  was  far  more  confusing. 
There  was  talk  of  opportunities  of  revenge  and  for  sudden  re- 
covery when  the  members  of  the  Entente  begin  to  quarrel  with 
one  another  and  similar  sentimental  dreams  common  among 
stupefied  Germans. 

Shortly  after  this  meeting  I  called  upon  the  little,  stoop- 
shouldered,  emaciated,  but  extremely  keen  editor  of  Die 
Glocke,  Max  Beer,  whom  the  Majority  Socialists  consider  one 
of  their  most  intelligent  expounders.  He  is  an  author  well 
known  in  England,  where  he  lived  for  many  years  as  corre- 
spondent of  Vorwaerts,  and  wrote  an  excellent  History  of 
British  Socialism.  I  was  surprised  that  his  idea  of  a  remedy 
for  the  German  confusion  was  almost  identical  with  that  of 
Professor  Troeltsch,  though  it  had  a  more  socialistic  coloring. 
The  state,  he  figured,  could  supply  from  its  reservations  one 
hundred  thousand  families  with  five  hectares  of  land  each, 
leased  to  them  for  two  hundred  years.  He  would  abolish  fifty 
per  cent  of  the  universities  and  found  agricultural  schools, 
which  would  lay  particular  stress  on  truck  gardening  and 
poultry  farming.  He  was  opposed  to  emigration,  however, 
and  thought  that  all  excess  labor  could  be  employed  in  building 
homes  for  workers. 

If  these  are  among  the  clearest  political  thinkers  of  Germany, 
the  country  is  still  far  from  recovery.  Yet  these  men  see  at 
least  that  conditions  have  changed.  Both  made  the  remark 
to  me  that  probably  only  five  per  cent  of  the  population  is 
able  to  see  that  radical  changes  have  taken  place;  that  four 
out  of  five  use  this  knowledge  to  profiteer;  that  only  one  per 


1 8  GERMANY  IN  TRAVAIL 

cent  devoted  itself  to  an  honest  effort  at  rebuilding,  and  only 
a  small  fraction  of  that  one  per  cent  has  any  real  ability 
to  do  so. 

rv 

But  even  though  confusion  so  prevails  in  economic  and 
political  questions  that  no  clear  analyses  of  them  are  being 
made,  and  people  are  therefore  blind  to  the  fundamental  tasks 
confronting  them,  yet  there  are  impressive  numbers  of  men, 
mostly  among  the  laboring  and  lower  middle  classes,  who  at 
least  know  that  they  do  not  see  and  are  determined  to  acquire 
the  ability  to  see,  however  unaccustomed  and  slow  the  process 
may  be.  The  belief  that  a  greater  intimacy  with  the  best  of 
art  and  education  will  best  help  them  know  themselves  and 
the  basic  human  and  national  powers  in  themselves,  is  a 
German  tradition  the  importance  of  which  the  revolution 
brought  home  to  these  classes  for  the  first  time.  I  was  told 
that  the  little  Berlin  suburb  of  Karlshorst,  where  mostly  humble 
people  live,  assembled  in  town  meeting  after  the  revolution 
and  alloted  five  million  marks  for  higher  education  for  their 
daughters  instead  of  thinking  of  obtaining  food. 

With  the  responsibilities  which  the  revolution  brought  to 
them,  the  people  of  this  class  seem  to  have  acquired  also  the 
consciousness  of  their  dependence  on  art,  that  formerly  was 
so  characteristic  of  the  educated  middle  classes.  Like  the 
latter  they  seem  to  have  a  realization  of  what  art  has  accom- 
plished in  German  crises.  To  the  German  people  the  Renais- 
sance, for  example,  is  principally  the  Reformation  with  Luther 
as  its  hero,  not  so  much  because  he  gave  them  religious  free- 
dom, as  because  with  his  translation  of  the  Bible  he  created 
for  them  a  common  language  and  made  them  free  to  express 
themselves  intelligibly  from  one  end  of  the  nation  to  the  other. 
The  Germans  also  consider  the  great  European  political  de- 
velopments and  upheavals  of  the  eighteenth  century  as  quite 
secondary  to  the  literary  revolution  of  their  "  Storm  and 
Stress,"  which  gave  them  confidence  in  themselves  and  a  con- 
sciousness of  national  individuality. 


THE   STRUGGLE   WITH   CONFUSION  19 

But  even  this  instinctive  turning  to  art  to  find  the  way  out 
of  spiritual  distress  is  not  free  from  the  dangers  of  confusion. 
Fanatics  are  attempting  to  distort  it,  and  profiteers  are  schem- 
ing to  use  its  power  for  personal  gain.  So-called  prophets 
travel  from  city  to  city  and  exhort  the  inhabitants  to  congregate 
in  the  squares  to  sing  and  dance  to  regain  health  and  joy  in 
life.  Large  audiences  are  attracted  by  strange  performances 
of  new  dances  which  in  some  mysterious  way  are  to  restore  a 
new  spiritual  balance.  New  fads  in  art  have  never  before 
made  so  bold  or  so  successful  an  appeal  for  devout  congrega- 
tions of  faithful  dupes. 

The  most  profitable  distortion  of  this  kind  is  the  widely 
spread  society  of  Dadaists,  which  through  its  art  offers  a  final 
solution  of  every  physical  and  spiritual  problem.  I  visited  its 
headquarters  and  publishing  house  in  Hannover  under  the 
guidance  of  a  literary  critic  of  that  city.  I  found  a  few  rooms 
stacked  to  the  ceiling  with  pamphlets  and  a  few  of  their  latest 
pictures  tacked  against  the  shelves.  At  least  they  called  them 
pictures.  They  were  boards  plastered  over  with  transfer 
tickets,  small  scraps  of  newspapers,  wisps  of  hair,  and  a  little 
hay  and  mud.  The  publisher  and  priest  was  a  keen-eyed 
and  raven-haired  hunchback.  With  his  cynical  smile  he  asked 
me  to  guess  at  the  titles  of  the  pictures,  and  when  I  answered 
in  a  bantering  way,  he  was  a  bit  offended,  though  he  tried 
not  to  show  it.  I  tried  to  get  him  to  tell  me  something  about 
his  Dadaism.  He  made  a  speech  something  like  a  barker 
at  a  circus  about  ultimate  value  and  last  secrets  and  "  see  for 
yourself."  His  talk  came  fast  and  his  mocking  eyes  danced; 
but  he  explained  nothing  at  all.  When  he  heard  that  I  was 
from  the  land  of  the  universally  desired  dollar,  he  tried  to 
talk  business  and  his  eyes  danced  even  more.  It  seems  that 
less  than  a  year  ago  he  had  been  a  type-setter  at  a  very 
low  salary,  but  had  saved  fifty  marks.  With  this  and  what 
money  he  could  borrow  on  his  unlimited  nerve  he  had  pub- 
lished his  first  Dada  pamphlet  of  poems  solving  all  problems 
but  with  no  sense  or  rhyme  or  reason.  The  fish  bit  lustily  and 
in  a  year  he  had  published  ninety  volumes  in  half  a  million 


20  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

copies.  He  is  a  shrewd  communistic  capitalist.  He  gave  me 
a  few  typical  pamphlets  to  ponder  over.  Before  I  left  he 
introduced  the  youngest  priest  of  Dadaism,  his  little  month-old 
son,  who  sang  some  very  good  Dada  songs,  though  he  could 
not  yet  pronounce  the  mystic  word  itself,  but  would  do  so 
within  a  very  short  time,  his  father  thought. 

Dadaism  is  advertised  as  the  ultimate  development  of  ex- 
pressionism. It  claims  to  express  the  truth  itself  in  its  ab- 
stract reality  by  means  of  the  most  real  materials  of  life  and 
without  selection.  It  turns  its  back  upon  all  the  media  of  the 
artists  of  bourgeois  society,  such  as  perspective  and  color, 
rhyme  and  logic,  and  harmony  and  counterpoint.  It  advo- 
cates new  materials,  such  as  bits  of  paper  and  dirt,  and  the 
new  technique  of  "  simultaneity  "  and  "  bruitism."  Finally  it 
boasts  of  destroying  art  itself  and  of  being  the  international 
revolution.  It  is  the  keenest  bit  of  advertising  I  have  ever 
seen,  expertly  adjusted  to  the  condition  of  a  fagged  and  be- 
wildered nation.  I  have  before  me  a  novel  of  forty-nine  pages, 
called  Second  through  Brain,  a  bewildering  confusion  of 
adventure,  cynicism,  eroticism,  even  of  type  thrown  helter 
skelter  on  the  page.  One  tenth  of  the  space  is  used  to  warn 
against  imitations  of  the  only  true  Dadaism,  obtainable  at 
Steegemann's  in  Hannover.  Incidentally,  this  publishing  house 
is  using  its  present  prosperity  to  publish  very  fine  de  luxe 
editions  of  standard  authors,  so  that  it  might  still  have  some 
business  if  the  country  should  return  to  reason. 

The  creed  of  Dadaism  demands: 

"i.  The  international  revolutionary  union  of  all  creative 
and  intellectual  persons  in  the  world  on  the  basis  of  radical 
Communism. 

2 .  The  introduction  of  progressive  unemployment  by  means 
of  a  comprehensive  mechanization  of  every  activity.  Only  by 
unemployment  does  the  individual  acquire  the  chance  of  gain- 
ing knowlege  of  the  truth  of  life  and  of  finally  accustoming 
himself  to  experience  life. 

3.  The  immediate  expropriation  of  property  and  the  com- 
munistic feeding  of  all  people,  as  well  as  the  building  of 


THE   STRUGGLE   WITH   CONFUSION  21 

beautiful    communistic   cities    which    shall    educate    man    to 
freedom." 

The  Central  Council  favors: 

"(a)  The  daily,  public  dinner  of  all  creative  and  intellec- 
tual people  on  the  Potsdammer  Platz  (Berlin); 

(b)  That  all  preachers  and  teachers  subscribe  to  the  dada- 
istic  creed; 

(c)  Relentless  warfare  against  all  so-called  spiritual 
workers  (Socialist  poets),  against  their  concealed  middle-class 
ethics  and  against  expressionism  and  post-classical  education; 

(d)  The  immediate  building  of  a  national  art-house; 

(e)  Introduction  of  the  simultaneous  poem  as  official 
communistic  prayer; 

(/)  Surrender  of  the  churches  for  performances  of  bruit- 
istic,  simultaneous  and  dadaistic  poems  (by  this  they  mean 
poems  accompanied  by  an  orchestra  of  typewriters,  kettle- 
drums, rattles  and  pot  covers); 

(g)  Formation  in  every  city  with  over  50,000  inhabitants 
of  a  dadaistic  soviet  to  rearrange  life; 

(h)  Immediate  execution  of  dadaistic  propaganda  with 
150  circuses  to  enlighten  the  proletariat; 

(i)  Control  of  laws  and  ordinances  by  the  dadaistic  Cen- 
tral Council  of  the  World  Revolution; 

(k)  Immediate  regulation  of  the  sexual  relationship  in  the 
international  dadaistic  sense  by  dadaistic  headquarters."  x 

This  is,  of  course,  merely  a  wildly  extravagant  perversion 
of  the  consciousness  within  the  German  people  of  the  intimate 
relation  between  their  art  and  their  lives.  It  is  keenly  ad- 
justed to  the  confusions  and  the  political  extravagances  of  the 
times  and  therefore  has  a  rather  formidable  success.  But  with 
the  lessening  of  post-war  diseases  it  will  quickly  die  out, 
while  the  sane  and  less  sensational  movements  in  art  and  edu- 
cation will  continue  to  grow  in  importance  and  influence. 

The  general  confusion,  however,  and  the  delicacy  of  the 
task,  which  demands  that  the  very  fundamentals  of  life  be 

1  En  Avant  Dada,  Richard  Huelscnbeck,  Hannover,  1920,  p.  29. 


22  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

reviewed  and  revalued,  are  still  clouding  the  minds  of  even 
the  most  honest  and  courageous  thinkers.  As  a  result  over- 
zealous  and  oversensitive  investigators  are  making  curious  per- 
versions of  history  which  find  a  large  response.  I  met  a 
group  of  splendidly  refined  men  in  Munich  who,  in  their  effort 
to  find  a  basis  for  a  new  unified  German  culture,  have  trans- 
planted themselves  back  into  the  Middle  Ages  and  deny  all 
later  German  developments  including  the  Reformation.  They 
place  the  responsibility  for  the  present  debacle  not  so  much 
upon  the  modern  statemen  as  upon  Luther  and  the  whole  of 
German  culture  born  of  Protestantism,  particularly  upon  Kant 
and  Goethe  and  Schopenhauer  and  Nietzsche.  They  attack 
Luther  for  having  torn  asunder  the  heart  of  the  nation  with 
complicated  problems,  and  Kant  for  having  stifled  the  nation's 
life  by  throwing  it  into  a  mad  whirlpool  of  dialectics.  They 
recommend  to  German  youth  that  it  disregard  all  modern 
philosophy  and  apply  itself  again  to  a  study  of  the  old 
German  mystics  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  thus  regain  its  sim- 
plicity. Reprints  of  these  old  mystics  are  being  sold  in  large 
editions.  But  such  distortions  are  slowly  being  overcome,  and 
there  appear  more  clearly  the  broad  outlines  at  least  of  the 
essential  problem. 


When  the  certainty  of  coming  defeat  slowly  forced  itself 
upon  the  minds  of  the  people  and  patriotic  enthusiasms  weak- 
ened, disturbing  criticism  of  the  government  and  of  the  nation's 
very  foundations  arose.  Those  men  who  had  the  power  and 
the  courage  to  think  began  to  search  the  history  of  their  people 
and  to  examine  the  validity  of  the  principles  and  of  the 
national  phrases  with  which  the  people  had  been  urged  to  war. 
Dimly  they  began  to  suspect  that  there  was  something  radi- 
cally wrong  with  the  fundamental  standards  by  which  they 
were  living.  They  began  to  see  that  the  war  had  merely 
accentuated  that  wrong  to  the  point  where  it  must  be  faced. 
They  caught  a  blurred  vision  of  how  a  powerful  force  had 
tampered  with  their  lives  for  generations,  had  robbed  them  of 


THE   STRUGGLE   WITH  CONFUSION  23 

their  individuality  and  made  them  into  mere  instruments. 
Just  how  they  could  thus  have  been  abused,  they  do  not  as 
yet  quite  know.  Even  the  bare  outline  of  such  a  vision  was 
terrifying  in  that  it  threatened  the  truth  of  every  accepted 
standard.  When,  however,  the  picture  takes  on  sharp  out- 
lines, and  becomes  clear  to  the  whole  nation,  it  will  be  the 
principal  incentive  to  definite  reconstruction. 

Meanwhile  to  an  important  minority  the  picture  is  begin- 
ning to  take  the  following  form:  On  the  one  hand  appears 
the  unselfishly  acquired  idealism  of  Kant  and  Goethe  and 
Schiller  and  Wilhelm  von  Humboldt  and  Stein  and  Hardenberg, 
a  basis  upon  which  the  nation  might  have  developed  true 
to  its  best  qualities.  On  the  other  hand  some,  at  least, 
are  beginning  to  see  the  true  nature  of  that  one-tracked, 
selfish  system  we  call  Prussianism  and  of  the  insidious  fight 
which  it  has  waged  for  generations  against  the  finer, 
unsuspecting  and  unprotected  idealism.  Because  of  the 
refined,  delicate  qualities  of  idealism,  the  more  robust 
material  system  could  almost  imperceptibly  force  it  into  its 
service.  Because  idealism  held  the  best  affections  of  the  think- 
ing and  flattered  the  sentimentalities  of  the  unthinking,  the 
system  borrowed  its  language  and  manners,  until  like  a  true 
parasite  it  had  assumed  the  outward  appearance  of  its  victim 
and  thus  could  all  the  better  work  its  cleverly  concealed  will. 
Finally  it  was  enjoying  from  the  people  the  respect  and  loyalty 
they  owed  to  their  idealism  and  in  the  latter's  cloak  it  led 
them  to  their  present  downfall.  It  was  a  slow,  relentless  and 
insidious  process.  The  system  had,  indeed,  the  honest  strength 
of  strict  limitation  of  purpose;  but  to  succeed  it  had  to  destroy 
the  only  basis  of  life  of  the  nation  that  it  wished  to  use.  Its 
own  life,  therefore,  had  of  necessity  to  be  short,  in  spite  of  large 
ephemeral  successes  and  in  spite  of  such  geniuses  of  restricted 
purpose  as  Frederick  the  Great  and  Bismarck  and  Treitschke. 
Success  and  genius,  and  the  subtle  borrowing  of  its  garb,  made 
it  so  attractive  that  the  few  alert  and  sensitive  spirits  of  the 
nation,  who  before  the  war  sensed  and  tried  to  disclose  its 
real  nature,  could  not  convince  their  hearers. 


24  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

But  today  there  are  not  a  few  who  know  that  here  lies  the 
real  disease  of  the  nation,  —  men  who  are  directing  their  eyes 
boldly  upon  the  picture,  however  disheartening  its  aspect  and 
however  painful  the  conviction  that  accustomed  standards 
must  be  revamped  and  freed  from  the  old  taint  and  that 
Kultur  must  be  refined  to  culture.  A  more  difficult  spiritual 
problem  cannot  confront  an  individual,  much  less  a  nation. 
Kultur  had  not  been  a  matter  of  the  individual.  It  was  a  cul- 
ture minutely  prepared  and  sternly  dictated:  replete  with  the 
comfort  of  a  choice  already  made.  Now  each  man  is  to 
be  forced  to  make  new  judgments  on  his  individual  responsibil- 
ity, and  yet  upon  the  basis  of  his  national  character.  The  proc- 
ess must  be  slow.  Its  first  stage  is  purely  negative;  the  old 
standards  seem  to  be  wrong.  As  a  result  men  do  not  know 
what  to  think  or  do.  Then  those  who  have  the  courage  strike 
out  for  a  new  balance.  Their  venture  still  is  more  a  longing 
than  an  attainment.  Some  of  the  gentlest  have  retired  wholly 
within  themselves  to  dream  of  a  spiritually  regenerated  and 
united  nation,  and  unfold  fantastic  sentimentalities.  Others 
have  been  given  courage,  because  of  their  very  yearning,  to 
direct  their  eyes  more  squarely  upon  the  essential  problems,  and 
they  are  making  promising  beginnings,  though  they  themselves 
may  still  be  near  despondence.  Their  search  for  faith  in  life 
and  in  a  nation  is,  however,  the  spectacle  that  held  me  during 
my  stay  with  them  and  of  which  I  shall  speak  in  these  essays. 
The  process  is  one  that  will  continue  for  a  long  time.  My 
reports,  therefore,  will  be  only  of  the  beginnings  I  have  found, 
but  these  beginnings  are  not  only  interesting  but  of  extreme 
importance  in  the  study  of  reconstruction  on  its  spiritual  and, 
therefore,  most  important  side. 


VI 

Before  I  started  out  for  Germany,  I  felt  sure  that  if  there 
were  any  one  within  the  nation  who  had  his  eyes  wide  open 
upon  the  real  conditions  of  the  country  and  possessed  the 
courage  and  insight  and  faith  to  lead  the  way  along  a  new 


THE   STRUGGLE   WITH   CONFUSION  25 

and  truer  path,  he  would  be  found  among  the  people's  greatest 
poets.  Some  of  the  younger  poets,  I  thought,  who  at  the  front 
had  been  forced  into  most  intimate  contact  with  the  system 
and  seen  it  crumble  under  stress  after  almost  crushing  the 
very  life  out  of  its  subjects  in  an  effort  to  maintain  itself, 
would  have  been  able  to  see  its  nature  clearest  and  would 
have  the  clearest  view  of  those  powers  which  might  bring  the 
nation  back  to  itself.  But  I  could  not  find  a  single  poet  of  the 
younger  generation  who  had  sufficiently  risen  above  the  con- 
fusion that  surrounded  him.  Not  one  of  them  has  given 
testimony  of  sufficiently  strong  faith  in  definite  redeeming 
forces.  There  is  not  a  single  clear,  convincing  composition  in 
a  new  drama  or  novel  which  unfolds  before  the  people  the 
forces  that  are  trying  to  awaken  within  them.  The  confusion, 
and  the  jealousies  and  prejudices  arising  from  confusion,  de- 
mand for  such  a  task  unusual  clearness  of  sight  and  force 
of  conviction. 

Ernst  Toller  is  the  most  promising  of  the  younger  poets  of 
Germany.  His  drama,  Die  Wandlung,  is  an  intensely  bold 
human  struggle  to  clear  from  cant  and  from  national  and 
personal  conceit  the  path  toward  a  solid  foundation.  Polit- 
ical prejudices  within  the  audience,  however,  not  only  over- 
emphasize the  minor  weaknesses  of  the  drama,  but  turn  the 
very  intensity  of  it  into  inartistic  rhetoric.  The  reactionary 
government  of  Munich  is  still  detaining  him  in  prison  because 
he  took  control  of  the  Munich  mobs  during  the  last  commu- 
nistic uprisings,  though  everybody  admits  that  he  did  so  merely 
in  the  hope  of  checking  their  excesses.  Meanwhile  the  ex- 
treme Socialists  of  Prussia  repeatedly  try  to  hoot  his  play  out 
of  the  theatre  because  they  consider  it  reactionary  propaganda. 

Richard  Dehmel  enlisted  for  the  front  in  spite  of  his  ad- 
vanced years  and  went  through  all  the  hardships  of  active 
service  because  he  longed  as  one  of  the  nation's  leading  poets 
to  be  in  the  midst  of  his  people's  sufferings  and  most  intense 
deeds  in  order  to  test  his  faith  in  them.  He  came  out  of  the 
war  with  a  scathing  accusation  of  the  system  but  clutching 
hard  at  his  belief  in  the  people.     His  death,  which  occurred 


26  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

soon  after  the  defeat,  was  brought  on,  as  his  most  intimate 
friends  informed  me,  by  his  inability  to  endure  the  spiritual 
dissolution  of  the  country. 

Gerhart  Hauptmann  is  without  any  hesitation  accepted  in 
Germany  as  the  foremost  poet.  I  had  the  privilege  of  being 
his  guest  on  several  occasions  and  of  listening  as  he  spoke  to 
me  of  his  nation's  distress.  Hauptmann's  deep  and  genuine 
sympathy  has  made  him  the  unusual  poet  that  he  is.  He 
always  tried  to  protect  the  soul  of  his  people  against  the 
system;  nor  was  he  ever  liked  by  the  system's  zealous  servants. 
During  the  war  he  was  not  very  sure  of  himself,  afraid  to 
hurt  his  people,  it  seems,  whichever  way  he  spoke.  So  he  be- 
came abstract  or  tried  to  save  his  faith  by  seeking  human 
qualities  in  situations  remote  from  the  confusion  immediately 
before  him.  He  has  grown  very  old  and  nervous  and  when  he 
speaks  is  plainly  confused,  often  stopping  his  pictures  before 
they  are  completed  and  seeking  a  better  way  to  shape  what 
rises  before  him.  But  he  is  most  calm  when  asked  if  he  has 
any  fear  lest  his  people  be  unable  to  rise  above  the  disintegra- 
tion now  at  work.  As  he  talked  of  this,  his  patience  was  the 
quality  which  impressed  me  most.  He  sees  that  it  may  take 
a  very  long  time  before  the  real  spiritual  growth  of  the  people 
becomes  apparent.  He  realizes  that  he  himself  may  not  live 
to  see  convincing  expressions  of  it.  But  his  quiet  faith,  in 
which  there  is  no  trace  of  resignation,  is  the  most  convincing 
individual  testimony  I  found.  His  work  meanwhile  harks 
back  to  the  realm  of  fairy  story.  He  is  even  recasting  some 
of  his  older  dramas  and  changing  them  more  into  fairy  tales 
as  the  expression  of  his  quiet  optimism.  So  while  he  knows 
no  definite  answer  to  any  definite  immediate  problem,  his  mes- 
sage to  the  people  is,  "  Be  calm:  do  not  forget  that  you  have 
a  soul  which  will  awaken  if  you  believe  in  it  and  give  it  time." 

Thomas  Mann  of  Munich,  the  greatest  prose  writer  of 
Germany,  is  a  man  of  quite  another  stamp.  He  is  not  one 
who  sees  large  visions,  but  rather  a  keen  analyst  of  the  circum- 
stances about  him.  Before  the  war  he  directed  many  a  sharp 
criticism  against   the  growing  materialism  of   the  country. 


THE  STRUGGLE   WITH   CONFUSION         27 

During  the  war  he  fought  against  the  democratizing  influences 
that  were  making  themselves  felt  in  the  nation  and  wrote  an 
impassioned  defense  of  those  forces  of  aristocracy  which  he 
believed  necessary  for  the  country's  growth.  In  these  writings 
his  patriotism  rather  dulled  his  usually  keen  perceptions. 
But  this  patriotism  was  stressed  by  an  intimately  personal 
quarrel  with  his  brother.  Heinrich  Mann  was  drawing  popular 
caricatures  of  the  Prussian  system  with  cutting  satire  that 
deeply  offended  the  older  brother,  who  tried  too  hard  to 
counteract  such  influences  by  means  of  his  essays.  In  my 
conversations  with  him,  however,  I  found  little  of  the  admirer 
of  Prussia.  The  demand  that  he  particularly  insists  upon  is 
that  the  power  of  Prussia  and  with  it  the  juror  politicus,  as 
he  termed  it,  be  thoroughly  curbed.  For  only  then  will 
Germans  turn  to  a  real  consideration  of  spiritual  values,  upon 
a  regeneration  of  which,  he  insists,  the  welfare  of  the  nation 
depends.  He  has  too  little  of  the  quiet  faith  of  Hauptmann, 
but  at  least  he  is  using  his  influence  as  a  leader  of  the  nation 
to  point  out  the  sort  of  regeneration  that  goes  to  the  very  core 
of  the  country's  life. 

It  is  not  the  poets,  however,  who  are  giving  the  strongest 
impetus  to  the  process  of  renewing  standards.  After  all,  they 
are  not  the  moral  persuaders  of  the  people  but  its  expressors, 
who  give  clear  form  to  that  within  the  people  which  is  of  vital 
strength,  though  not  yet  conscious  of  itself.  Accordingly  they 
fix  upon  the  stages  that  the  onward  march  has  reached,  and 
by  revealing  the  marchers  to  themselves,  and  what  they  have 
done  by  virtue  of  themselves,  they  open  up  the  road  to  further 
progress.  But  when  the  people  are  confused  or  lacking  in 
genuine  force,  the  nation's  poets  too  are  helpless  and  their 
speech  lacks  clearness  and  a  confident  point  of  view.  The 
nation  itself,  though  it  may  not  be  clearly  conscious  of  its 
direction,  must  have  the  power  in  itself  to  march  ahead  and 
must  give  evidences  of  a  will  to  exert  that  power. 


28  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 


VII 

Germany  is  today  in  a  sad  confusion  and  very  many  of  its 
university  men  and.  others  of  its  intellectual  and  moral  leaders 
are  badly  mired  in  the  general  upset.  But  there  is  a  strong 
minority  of  the  people,  mostly  from  the  lower  middle  classes 
and  the  skilled  workers,  who  are  not  only  conscious  that  they 
must  clear  the  paths  for  newer  and  truer  progress,  but  have 
banded  together  into  strong  organizations  for  a  common  pur- 
pose. These  are  the  men  whom  the  old  system  had  most  com- 
pletely tied ;  whom,  according  to  its  "  efficient  "  wisdom,  it  had 
made  very  useful  and  quite  prosperous  at  the  expense  of 
their  individuality  and  the  prerogative  of  thinking  for  them- 
selves. The  encouraging  element  in  the  revolt  of  these  men 
is  that  it  is  not  directed  toward  greater  prosperity  or  even 
principally  toward  greater  political  freedom,  though  of  course 
they  have  political  organizations.  Their  most  enthusiastic 
organizations  are  directed  toward  attaining  fuller  spiritual 
freedom  and  a  clearer  picture  of  themselves  upon  the  basis 
of  which  such  freedom  can  be  won.  I  shall  describe  their 
efforts  toward  adult  education  in  which  there  is  no  attempt 
at  vocational  training  but  simply  a  strong  desire  for  a  liberal 
culture,  that  they  may  know  themselves  more  fully  and  better 
grasp  their  relations  to  each  other  and  to  the  forces  of  society. 
Among  preparatory  school  students  I  found  a  strange  but  in- 
teresting concerted  effort  to  reinvestigate  the  principles  of  the 
accepted  educational  systems  in  order  to  make  them  conform 
more  closely  to  the  basic  human  needs  of  the  youth.  This 
effort  culminated  long  before  the  war  in  a  violent  struggle 
against  the  system's  pedagogues  and  against  subservience  of 
the  home  to  the  school.  Throughout  the  country  there  are 
large  and  important  drama  leagues  by  which  the  people  hope 
to  make  accessible  to  themselves  the  great  poets  of  their 
past,  to  guard  their  great  expressions  against  the  corrupting 
influences  now  upon  the  country  in  its  confusion,  and  also  to 
encourage  their  living  poets  to  help  them  find  themselves. 


THE  STRUGGLE   WITH  CONFUSION  29 

In  liberal  education  and  in  art  they  seek  the  means  by 
which  new  spiritual  standards  may  be  made  effective.  The 
confusion  threatens  this  search  with  the  possibility  of  many 
serious  mistakes.  The  habitual  affections  and  comforts  of 
old  conditions  as  well  as  the  glamour  of  new  promises  threaten 
to  spoil  the  search  with  vain  sentimentalities.  Therefore,  they 
are  trying  to  prepare  themselves  by  a  liberalizing  education, 
and  in  the  visions  of  their  poets  they  are  seeking  correctives, 
and  direction.  In  times  of  national  stress  the  people's  attitude 
toward  art  has  often  been  almost  a  religious  one.  Today  this 
attitude  is  accentuated  by  the  feeling  that  in  every  other  phase 
of  their  living  they  are  under  the  control  of  their  victors. 
With  their  art,  however,  they  are  free  to  do  what  their  personal 
convictions  and  desires  dictate.  The  clearest  indication  of  the 
coming  reconstruction  of  Germany  is  the  faith  of  an  important 
minority  that  the  great  dramas,  as  the  highest  artistic  ex- 
pressions, provide  the  means  to  clear  away  the  confusion  by 
revealing  that  which  is  most  genuine  in  themselves,  and  the 
calm  determination  of  this  minority  to  apply  themselves  to 
art  with  this  purpose. 


II 

EDUCATION,  OLD  AND  NEW 


WHEN  a  national  crisis  reaches  the  point  where  old 
standards  are  discredited  and  new  standards  are 
demanded,  the  universities  must  clearly  manifest 
their  worth  and  prove  the  genuineness  of  their  liberalism. 
For  if  liberalism  be  genuine,  it  will  have  not  only  the  insight 
and  the  freedom  from  prejudice  to  make  thorough  and  minute 
analysis  of  accustomed  habits,  but  it  will  also  have  a  full 
appreciation  of  those  elements  in  the  old  standards  which  are 
still  representative  of  the  nation's  life.  By  such  liberalism 
alone  can  the  universities  lay  the  foundation  for  a  revaluation. 
In  former  crises,  in  the  eighteenth  century  and  in  the  move- 
ment that  culminated  in  the  Revolution  of  1848,  the  univer- 
sities took  a  leading  part  in  liberalizing  thought.  Today  they 
are  generally  considered  the  centers  of  reaction,  and  in  their 
passionate  fight  against  the  new  they  renounce  even  the  free- 
dom they  attained  in  former  struggles  and  champion  the  prej- 
udices of  feudal  days. 

Upon  examination  you  find  that  in  the  materializing  process 
of  Prussia,  especially  during  recent  decades,  the  universities 
were  more  completely  caught  in  the  machine  than  any  other 
of  the  large  national  institutions.  This  machine,  cleverly 
conscious  of  its  advantage,  had  made  the  universities  into  great 
training  schools  for  its  public  and  confidential  servants.  The 
university  degree  was  an  unfailing  recommendation  to  the  in- 
numerable positions  of  trust  which  the  system  controlled  in 
foreign  service  and  in  every  conceivable  branch  of  public  life 

30 


EDUCATION,   OLD  AND  NEW  31 

within  the  empire:  in  administration,  in  judicial  service,  and  in 
church  and  school.  The  command  of  the  army  alone,  and 
a  few  positions  of  highest  dignity  in  other  branches,  were  pre- 
served as  prerogatives  of  birth.  If  only  education  was  con- 
sistent with  the  aims  and  purposes  of  the  system,  its  quality 
was  preserved  and  liberalism,  even,  was  encouraged.  Academic 
freedom  became  increasingly  the  freedom  of  a  protected  privi- 
leged class.  With  the  downfall  of  the  system  and  the  radical 
social  changes  resulting  from  the  revolution,  the  inevitable 
results  of  such  education  became  so  evident  that  all  respect 
by  the  people  as  a  whole  for  higher  education  seemed  en- 
dangered. The  universities  had  not  been  institutions  of 
liberal  culture  but  highly  specialized  vocational  schools.  To 
the  students  the  revolution  brought  serious  uncertainties  and 
new  disquieting  competitions.  The  church  was  freed  from  the 
control  of  the  state;  judgeships  were  to  be  awarded  upon  a 
broader  basis  than  merely  a  university  degree;  promotions 
were  to  be  determined  by  merit  rather  than  by  a  definite 
period  of  service;  some  positions,  such  as  those  of  municipal 
administration,  were  to  become  elective,  while  some  of  the 
free  professions,  such  as  that  of  the  physician,  were  ultimately 
to  be  drawn  into  civil  service.  Therefore  conformity  to  the 
new  state  of  things  demanded  excessive  sacrifice  and  more  un- 
selfish interest  than  vocational  training  can  produce,  or  did 
produce  in  Germany. 

Accordingly  the  large  majority  of  alumni,  students  and 
faculty  angrily  went  into  opposition  against  the  social  change. 
Because  the  first  contact  with  it  was  painful,  they  have  re- 
fused to  recognize  it  or  to  examine  it.  To  be  sure,  the  economic 
changes  resulting  from  defeat  affected  the  university  class  more 
painfully  than  any  other  single  group.  As  the  mark  dropped 
in  value,  workers'  wages  rose  almost  in  proportion  to  its  fall, 
and  business  reorganization  and  profiteering  still  made  exist- 
ence comparatively  carefree  for  the  capitalists,  both  large  and 
small ;  but  professional  incomes  and  salaries  of  the  civil  servant 
became  more  and  more  inadequate,  and  brought  the  educated 
middle  class  nearer  to  starvation  than  any  other  group  in  the 


32  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

country.  During  the  war  these  people  in  their  patriotic  fervor 
had  invested  their  little  savings  in  government  bonds,  the  in- 
come from  which  shrank  to  a  mere  pittance  with  the  deprecia- 
tion of  the  currency.  In  addition  this  class  had  always  been 
very  proud,  and  had  carefully  manipulated  its  modest  income 
to  keep  up  appearances  of  dignity.  Poverty  to  them,  there- 
fore, meant  starving  in  a  double  sense.  It  is  only  human 
that  their  misery  kept  them  from  facing  the  situation  bravely 
and  set  them  in  such  an  angry  opposition  to  the  new  conditions 
that  they  were  in  no  mood  even  to  examine  them. 

This  is  the  class  that  sends  its  sons  to  the  universities. 
Under  the  old  system  university  training  was  their  special 
privilege.  Today  it  cannot  afford  to  supply  its  sons  with  the 
allowances  necessary  to  support  them  while  they  get  their 
training.  But  these  sons  inherit  with  their  parents'  poverty 
their  pride,  which  has  always  made  it  seem  undignified  for 
them  to  work  their  way  through  college.  Now  they  must 
work  or  give  up  their  schooling;  and  because  the  latter  would 
be  the  greater  blow  to  their  self-esteem  they  seek  with  grim 
determination  the  means  of  earning  a  scant  living,  under  serious 
difficulties  and  with  none  of  the  cheerfulness  of  the  American 
student.  They  drive  cabs  or  clean  the  streets  at  night  or  sell 
second-hand  books  in  carts  at  street  corners.  Meanwhile  the 
sons  of  the  new  war  rich  or  of  the  workers  not  only  offer  new 
competition,  but  have  the  money  and  the  time  to  make  that 
competition  seem  unfair,  and  they  also  crowd  the  universities 
beyond  capacity.  So  everything  accumulates  to  make  the 
temper  of  the  former  educated  class  a  menace  to  reconstruction. 

Unfortunately  the  leaders  at  the  universities,  the  faculties, 
have  just  as  little  courage.  They  too  are  suffering,  and  there- 
fore violently  attack  the  new  order  and  wish  that  the  old  were 
back  again.  Thus  they  encourage  the  blindness  of  their 
students  instead  of  being  faithful  to  their  calling  and  helping 
them  to  see.  To  confuse  the  situation  even  more,  soon  after 
the  revolution  the  universities  filled  up  with  that  large  body- 
guard of  the  old  regime  which  formerly  would  have  trained 
in  its  own  schools  for  commissions  in  the  army.     With  the 


EDUCATION,   OLD  AND  NEW  33 

dissolution  of  the  army  under  the  treaty  they  entered  the 
universities  for  want  of  knowing  what  else  to  do.  These  men 
are  using  the  higher  schools  as  centers  for  their  resentful 
propaganda,  and  find  a  fertile  field  in  the  confused  state  of 
mind  of  the  traditional  student. 

During  the  communistic  disorders  throughout  the  empire 
in  the  early  days  of  the  revolution,  it  was  the  students  who 
saved  the  country  from  extreme  disorganization.  Now  they 
consider  that  the  country  is  greatly  indebted  to  them  and 
under  obligation  to  follow  their  lead.  But  instead  of  leading 
towards  a  new  social  or  spiritual  organization,  they  have  be- 
come fomenters  of  monarchial  reactions:  at  times  of  national 
elections  the  students  join  to  defeat  democracy,  when  disorder 
threatens  they  organize  irregular  bands  and  terrorize  towns 
suspected  of  harboring  radicals,  periodically  they  set  out  upon 
Jew-baiting  expeditions,  and  they  otherwise  obstruct  the  en- 
deavors of  the  official  government  to  bring  order  out  of  chaos. 

11 

In  the  midst  of  the  reactionary  confusion  of  university  life 
as  a  whole  I  found  in  the  individual  members  of  university 
faculties  and  in  small  groups  of  students  the  keenest  insight 
into  the  present  affairs  of  the  country  and  the  highest  aims 
for  national  development.  The  selfishness  and  blindness  of 
university  life  is  at  least  being  insistently  attacked  from  within. 
Minority  student  organizations  at  every  university  are  attempt- 
ing to  analyse  the  changes  that  the  country  is  under- 
going, and  I  found  them  persisting  in  their  work  in  spite  of 
much  derision  from  their  fellows  and  even  some  persecution. 
Faculty  meetings  since  the  revolution  are  said  to  be  the  scenes 
of  violent  combat  between  the  reactionary  majority  and  the 
few  who,  having  the  courage  to  look  things  squarely  in  the 
face,  see  that  society  has  changed  and  that  the  university 
should  make  itself  the  leader  of  the  new  order. 

In  the  description  of  political  parties  it  was  pointed  out 
that  among  the  leaders  of  the  Democratic  Party  are  those  who 


34  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

have  the  clearest  insight  into  Germany's  real  conditions,  and 
the  strongest  determination  to  lead  the  country  in  the  direction 
of  honest  and  sane  recovery.  Due  to  the  respect  these  men 
command  because  of  their  unselfish  rectitude,  they  exert  an 
influence  quite  out  of  proportion  to  their  party's  strength. 
The  strongest  of  these  leaders  are  members  of  university 
faculties,  men  like  Ernst  Troeltsch  and  Max  Weber. 
Troeltsch,  who  is  Professor  of  Philosophy  at  Berlin,  has  been 
Prussian  Undersecretary  of  State  since  the  revolution  and  has 
made  his  influence  felt  in  every  critical  decision  of  the  Prus- 
sian Ministry.  Weber,  until  his  death  from  overexertion  in 
the  summer  of  1920,  was  Professor  of  Political  Economy  at 
the  University  of  Munich  and  the  most  fearless  and  thorough 
champion  of  democratic  thought  in  Germany.  The  loss  of  his 
leadership,  just  when  Bavaria  was  beginning  her  sad  role  of 
impeding  the  empire's  reconstruction  by  tactics  of  extreme 
reaction,  was  most  unfortunate  both  for  Bavaria  and  the 
empire  as  a  whole.  Such  men  attract  within  the  universities 
a  following  which,  though  none  too  large,  is  extraordinarily 
strong  and  has,  in  spite  of  the  reactionary  attitude  of  the  larger 
part  of  university  circles,  maintained  among  the  people  as  a 
whole  some  respect  for  university  training. 


in 

During  the  earlier  days  of  the  revolution,  when  the  Social 
Democrats  were  in  more  complete  control  of  government  than 
they  are  now,  there  was  persistent  demand  that  the  univer- 
sities be  opened  far  more  generally  to  the  people  as  a  whole 
and  adapt  their  teaching  more  directly  to  the  immediate 
economic  needs  of  the  people,  or  that,  in  order  to  save  expenses, 
the  various  universities  be  consolidated  into  a  few  absolutely 
necessary  ones,  and  purely  "  decorative  "  departments  be  elim- 
inated. Owing  chiefly  to  the  respect  for  the  small  group 
of  liberal-minded  men  about  Professor  Troeltsch,  reason 
finally  prevailed  in  this  very  ugly  quarrel.  Konrad  Haenisch, 
who  became  Prussian  Minister  for  Education  and  the  Arts 


EDUCATION,   OLD  AND  NEW  35 

after  that  position  had  been  held  by  narrow-minded  and 
dangerous  fanatics,  is  a  prominent  Socialist  but  a  highly 
cultured,  fair,  and  liberal-minded  man  who  guards  most  care- 
fully the  nation's  rich  intellectual  resources.  He  has  opened 
the  universities  to  the  people  so  far  as  he  could  without  en- 
dangering their  standards  of  scholarship.  He  is  in  the  midst 
of  the  difficult  task  of  devising  effective  means  to  liberalize 
teaching.  But  he  has  stopped  all  talk,  at  least  within  the 
government,  of  eliminating  any  of  the  departments  of  the 
universities.  He  is  fully  conscious  that  the  universities  are  too 
vocational  already  and  opposes  all  attempts  to  make  them  more 
so  or  to  change  them  into  a  new  kind  of  vocational  schools  for 
another  class  of  the  population.  Where  new  departments  were 
needed  because  of  a  broadening  of  the  life  of  the  country,  he 
has  created  them,  as,  for  example,  the  new  courses  in  labor 
leadership  at  the  University  of  Miinster.  But  his  efforts  are 
more  strictly  directed  toward  liberalizing  the  spirit  of  the 
universities,  in  student  body  and  faculty.  He  is  wisely  direct- 
ing his  efforts  more  toward  the  students  than  toward  the 
teachers.  I  am  told  that  his  work  is  bearing  fruit:  that  more 
and  more  are  willing  to  open  their  eyes  to  the  changes  that 
have  taken  place  and  are  beginning  to  realize  that  if  they 
wish  to  enjoy  the  prerogatives  of  youth  and  to  work  toward 
leadership  among  their  fellows,  they  must  put  themselves  at 
the  service  of  their  new  nation  and  make  themselves  indis- 
pensable to  it. 

rv 

Meanwhile,  not  so  much  outside  of  as  side  by  side  with 
university  education,  a  new  popular  education  movement  has 
sprung  into  life.  This  is  a  movement  toward  liberal  culture 
by  adult  workers  whose  economic  fortunes  had  not  permitted 
them  such  privileges  in  their  younger  days. 

There  have  always  been  organizations  for  workmen's  educa- 
tion in  Berlin,  but  these  were  conducted  by  political  parties, 
principally  those  of  the  Left,  for  purposes  of  party  propaganda; 
or  they  were  private  undertakings,  some  more  or  less  philan- 


36  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

thropic,  some  purely  commercial,  which  fed  their  members  in  a 
haphazard  way  on  popular  lectures. 

When  the  revolution  freed  the  workers  from  the  spiritual 
bonds  of  the  old  regime  and  with  the  new  freedom  had  come 
added  responsibilities,  the  more  thoughtful  worker  felt  a  keen 
desire  for  a  broader  education  to  enable  him  to  approach  his 
task  intelligently.  Within  a  short  time  scores  of  workmen's 
educational  associations  were  formed  in  Berlin.  But  these 
groups  were  often  controlled  by  sentimental  theorists,  incom- 
petent educators,  or  dishonest  special  pleaders,  who  created 
confusion  or  even  misdirected  an  honest  search  for  knowledge. 
The  University  held  itself  aloof  from  the  movement  of  work- 
men's education  as  it  had  done  from  the  entire  revolution. 
A  few  teachers  maintained  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  Univer- 
sity to  bring  these  groups  together  and  to  direct  the  work  in 
the  spirit  in  which  the  workers  had  conceived  it.  They  were 
met  by  violent  opposition  from  their  colleagues,  as  though  they 
were  proposing  to  give  valuable  assistance  to  a  dangerous 
enemy.  But  they  insisted  on  their  point  and  gradually  won  a 
small  number  of  enthusiastic  supporters.  In  the  spring  of 
1919  the  Prussian  Cabinet  forced  consideration  of  the  matter 
upon  the  universities  by  decreeing  that  at  all  universities  in 
Prussia  councils  for  popular  education  be  established  to  give 
advice  and  aid  to  workers'  educational  associations.  Through 
the  breach  thus  made  the  interested  members  of  the  faculty 
directed  their  attack.  Thus,  though  a  large  number  of  its 
members  still  persist  in  a  reactionary  attitude  and  grumble 
at  the  innovation  as  much  as  they  dare,  today  the  University 
officially  plays  an  important  part  in  the  movement. 

The  aim  of  the  interested  educators  was  to  combine  the 
many  associations  into  one  large  effective  body,  to  define 
its  aims,  and  to  devise  methods  of  realizing  them.  In  March 
191 9  Professor  Merz  of  the  University,  and  Sassenbach,  a 
member  of  the  city  council,  formulated  the  principles  upon 
which  should  be  built  the  organization  which  they  called  the 
Volkshochschule  Gross-Berlin.  They  persisted  in  their  en- 
deavors, and  in  the  fall  of  191 9  the  constitution  was  adopted 


EDUCATION,   OLD  AND  NEW  37 

by  representatives  of  the  communities  of  Greater  Berlin  and 
of  all  the  principal  labor  unions.  The  University  was  then 
forced  to  accept  the  situation,  especially  since  the  organization 
had  soon  grown  to  large  dimensions.  By  the  fall  of  1920  it 
had  absorbed  most  of  the  smaller  organizations,  and  was  con- 
ducting 135  courses  with  a  faculty  of  118  teachers. 

The  Association  is  supported  by  three  institutions:  the  city 
communities  which  furnish  the  necessary  finances,  the  estab- 
lished labor  unions  whose  interest  guarantees  popular  confi- 
dence, and  the  University  which  watches  over  the  standards 
of  the  work.  The  University,  to  be  sure,  does  not  act  officially 
through  its  Faculty,  but  through  its  Council  for  Popular  Edu- 
cation. While  this  does  not  assure  the  support  of  all  the 
members  of  the  University,  or  even  of  a  majority,  it  attaches 
to  the  work  those  most  truly  interested,  and  thus  saves  much 
friction  and  delay.  The  university  faculties  of  Germany  are 
only  too  justly  accused  of  being  stupidly  reactionary,  and  so 
do  not  enjoy  the  confidence  of  a  very  large  proportion  of  the 
people.  The  Prussian  Cabinet  therefore  decreed  that  in  addi- 
tion to  representatives  of  the  Faculty  the  Council  should  con- 
tain specialists  not  connected  with  the  University,  the  chair- 
man and  business  manager  of  the  Workmen's  Educational 
Association,  and  six  workmen's  representatives.  The  executive 
committees  of  the  Council  is  composed  of  an  equal  number  of 
university  men  and  of  delegates  of  the  Workmen's  Educational 
Association. 

In  all  departments  of  the  Workmen's  Educational  Associa- 
tion care  is  taken  to  give  as  much  attention  to  interested 
popular  opinion  as  is  consistent  with  the  standards  that  the 
work  must  attain.  The  parliamentary  functions  are  vested  in 
what  is  called  the  Committee.  This  is  a  very  large  body.  About 
fifty  delegates  to  it  are  elected  by  the  different  communities  of 
the  city  in  proportion  to  their  population.  All  unions  of  a  mem- 
bership of  five  thousand  or  more  send  delegates  in  proportion 
to  their  size,  and  with  them  are  included  also  those  political 
parties  that  maintain  departments  of  cultural  education,  the 
expectation  being  that  they  will  let  the  Workmen's  Educational 


38  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

Association  do  the  work  for  them  and  thus  separate  education 
and  party  propaganda,  as  is  proper.  This  group  of  unions  and 
political  parties  also  sends  about  fifty  delegates.  The  faculty 
and  the  classes  of  the  Workmen's  Educational  Association  send 
twenty  delegates,  ten  from  each  group.  Finally,  a  few  repre- 
sentatives of  those  popular  educational  associations  not  yet  ab- 
sorbed, and  a  few  prominent  scientists,  artists  and  educators  are 
invited  by  the  Executive  Council  to  become  members. 

The  governing  body  of  the  Association  is  the  Executive 
Council.  This  is  composed  of  thirteen  delegates  chosen  on  the 
principle  of  proportional  representation  by  the  four  main  bodies 
of  the  Committee.  To  these  are  added  the  business  manager 
of  the  Workmen's  Educational  Association,  two  experts  in 
workmen's  education,  and  one  representative  from  each  of  the 
higher  schools  of  the  city:  the  University,  the  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology, and  the  School  of  Commerce.  This  body  is  chosen 
for  one  year  only. 

The  most  important  office  is  that  of  the  business  manager, 
who  is  the  principal  executive  of  the  Association  and  the  final 
authority  in  all  its  affairs.  His  personality  may  determine  to 
a  very  large  extent  the  success  or  failure  of  the  undertakings, 
and  great  care  is  therefore  taken  in  his  choice.  Three  candi- 
dates are  nominated  by  the  University  Council  for  Popular 
Education  after  conference  with  the  Executive  Council  of  the 
Workmen's  Educational  Association;  from  these  three  the 
Executive  Council  chooses  a  manager  and  their  choice  must  be 
ratified  by  the  Committee.  According  to  the  constitution,  the 
business  manager  must  resign  if  at  any  time  he  does  not  com- 
mand the  confidence  of  the  Executive  Council,  expressed  by  a 
majority  vote.  As  long  as  the  Association  enjoys  the  services 
of  its  present  manager,  Professor  Merz,  it  is  certain  to  be  led 
extremely  well.  He  is  an  energetic,  practical  idealist,  whose 
eyes  are  open  to  the  situation  confronting  Germany  and  whose 
will  is  steadfastly  directed  toward  a  sane  solution. 

The  two  principal  bodies  of  the  organization  are  so  consti- 
tuted as  to  give  the  widest,  possible  representation  to  the 
workers  and  to  the  population  from  which  they  come,  and  at 


EDUCATION,   OLD  AND  NEW  39 

the  same  time  to  include  a  strong  corps  of  interested  scholars 
to  guard  the  standard  of  work.  The  Committee  is  intention- 
ally made  a  large  as  practicable,  because  it  is  felt  that  the  con- 
tinuous and  free  discussion  between  scholars  and  workers  will 
best  clarify  the  aims  of  the  Association,  and  lead  to  their  being 
widely  disseminated  through  the  masses. 

The  purpose  of  the  undertaking,  as  formulated  by  Professor 
Merz,  is  "  to  develop  spiritually  independent  personalities,  and 
to  put  them  into  intimate  relation  to  society."  In  all  respects 
the  institution  aims  to  serve  the  general  culture  of  the  citizens, 
and  it  in  no  wise  gives  the  vocational  training  of  the  regular 
schools.  The  men  within  this  movement  seem  clearly  con- 
scious that  the  higher  schools  have  gained  their  vocational  effi- 
ciency by  the  sacrifice  of  general  cultural  training,  and  they 
hold  this  condition  largely  responsible  for  the  inflexible,  re- 
actionary spirit  at  the  universities  today.  Therefore  the 
Workmen's  Educational  Association  is  in  no  way  to  be  a  uni- 
versity on  a  lower  basis,  but  it  must  establish  a  dignified  posi- 
tion of  its  own,  and  even  exert  upon  the  academic  institutions 
important  new  influences.  It  wants  to  put  its  students  into 
touch  with  the  spiritual  riches  of  humanity,  to  sharpen  their 
power  of  observation  and  their  sense  of  fact,  and  on  this 
basis  to  develop  logical  thinking  and  a  sane  understanding  of 
human  interrelationships. 

v 

To  attain  these  objects  the  following  grouping  01  courses 
has  been  outlined.  Since  the  first  step  must  be  to  develop  a 
sense  of  fact  and  an  ability  to  make  the  correct  deductions  in- 
herent in  facts,  the  studies  in  mathematics  and  natural,  sciences 
are  encouraged  first.  Here  the  facts  and  processes  are  simple, 
and  simple  laws  are  logically  deduced.  Also  simple  problems 
can  be  manipulated,  the  penetration  of  which  is  important  for 
a  rational  view  of  life.  Twenty-eight  per  cent  of  all  the  courses 
belong  to  this  group.  In  the  study  of  science  practically  all 
the  emphasis  is  put  upon  principles.    In  the  few  courses  (about 


4o  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

five  per  cent)  dealing  with  applied  science  only  those  scientific 
accomplishments  are  studied  which  have  decisively  influenced 
spiritual  culture  or  the  structure  of  human  society,  or  which 
through  the  manner  of  their  application  have  become  works 
of  art. 

The  study  of  literature,  music,  and  graphic  and  plastic  art 
is  placed  next  in  importance.  In  these  subjects  the  object 
is  to  learn  to  know  the  nature  of  artistic  expression  and  its 
relation  to  life.  This  is  sought  not  through  informative  his- 
torical study  but  through  intimate  associations  with  a  few  great 
works  of  art.  For  example,  a  class  will  devote  a  whole  quarter 
to  the  study  of  Hamlet:  first  the  play  will  be  read  to  them  by 
an  eminent  actor,  then  a  detailed  study  will  be  made  the  basis 
for  class  discussions,  which  will  incidentally  uncover  funda- 
mental questions  of  artistic  expression.  In  the  study  of  music, 
small  orchestras  are  called  in  to  assist,  and  much  of  the  study 
of  the  other  arts  is  carried  on  in  the  city  museums.  This 
group  comprises  twenty-two  per  cent  of  the  curriculum. 

All  the  work  is  directed  toward  the  development  of  a  true 
social  structure  in  which  the  thoughts  and  acts  of  each  indi- 
vidual  are  led  by  the  conviction  that  he  is  serving  the  best 
interests  of  society,  and  that  he  is  conscious  of  his  responsi- 
bility to  it.  The  class  must  gain  an  insight  into  the  develop- 
ment of  the  ideas  of  right  and  law,  and  of  the  principles  of 
state  and  society.  It  must  investigate  how  various  social 
conditions  have  arisen,  whether  they  are  a  necessary  develop- 
ment, and  how  in  the  future  they  can  be  influenced  in  the 
interests  of  society.  This  is,  of  course,  the  study  of  history, 
geography,  social  science,  and  economics.  Much  attention  is 
paid  to  the  development  of  democracies,  especially  to  the  re- 
cent history  of  Russia  and  of  Germany.  Much  time  is  given 
to  investigating  the  historical  roots  of  the  new  institutions  in- 
augurated or  proposed  by  the  new  German  government,  on  the 
principle  that  the  worker  should  make  a  close  examination  of 
those  spiritual-  movements  that  seek  to  change  economic  and 
social  conditions  for  the  alleged  benefit  of  society  as  a  whole. 
To  be  sure,  the  country  is  still  in  the  midst  of  the  revolution 


EDUCATION,  OLD  AND  NEW  41 

and  there  is  a  consequent  strong  consciousness  of  social  shift 
among  the  workers,  so  that  much  interest  is  centered  about 
the  study  of  the  principles  of  democracy  and  socialism.  The 
emphasis  on  the  study  of  Marxism  is  a  little  out  of  proportion 
in  an  otherwise  carefully  balanced  liberal  program.  But  this 
is  a  subject  constantly  forced  upon  these  men  outside  the 
classes;  within  the  classes  it  seems  to  be  treated  dispassion- 
ately and  in  a  thoroughly  scholarly  way,  and  may  help  to  give 
these  students  the  balance  of  liberality  so  much  needed  in 
Germany's  present  confusion  of  passions.  Thirty-three  per 
cent  of  the  courses  belong  to  this  larger  group. 

The  crowning  efforts  are  meant  to  come  in  intensive  studies 
in  philosophy  and  the  science  of  religion.  In  these  studies  the 
class  seeks  the  cultural  standards  peculiar  to  peoples  or  to 
whole  epochs,  the  intimate  knowledge  of  which  should  help 
each  man  to  build  the  bridge  which  puts  his  own  personality 
into  relation  with  the  rest  of  the  world.  Here,  too,  the  purely 
historical  study  is  avoided.  First,  introductory  courses  are 
offered  to  present  the  character  and  problems  of  philosophy, 
and  then  separate  philosophical  problems  and  separate  phi- 
losophical systems  are  studied  intensively. 

Finally,  a  few  courses  in  pedagogy  are  presented  which  are 
meant  to  test  the  methods  of  the  Association.  These  consist 
mainly  in  lectures  on  universal  education,  on  reforms  such  as 
the  "  ground  schools,"  or  on  the  work  of  the  Workmen's  Edu- 
cational Association  itself.  The  general  plan  is  to  arrange 
the  courses  so  that  any  one  subject,  in  so  far  as  it  is  adaptable 
to  the  work  of  the  Workmen's  Educational  Association,  may  be 
exhausted  in  two  or,  at  most,  three  years.  Three  types  of 
courses  are  offered  in  each  of  the  groups:  first,  introductory 
courses  which  consist  largely  of  lectures  intended  to  give  an 
idea  of  the  scope  and  purpose  and  method  of  later  courses; 
then  the  intermediate  courses  which  are  to  supply  the  material 
for  the  final  work;  finally,  the  "  Arbeitsgcmeinschaft,"  or 
spiritual  workshop  itself.  In  the  introductory  courses  the 
numbers  are  large,  and  the  lecturer  predominates,  but  per- 
sistent attempts  are  made  to  encourage  discussion  after  each 


42  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

talk.  In  the  more  advanced  work  the  numbers  are  carefully 
limited.  The  intermediate  courses  seek  to  have  the  student 
acquaint  himself  with  the  material  of  his  branch  of  study  and 
search  for  the  best  method  of  employing  that  material.  Lectur- 
ing is  therefore  discouraged,  and  all  the  work  is  done  by  means 
of  discussions,  still  directed,  however,  by  the  teacher.  In  the 
workshop  the  aim  is  to  approach  more  and  more  the  point 
where  teacher  and  student  realize  that  they  are  searching  in 
common.  Here  the  attitude  of  the  student,  both  in  his  ob- 
servations and  in  his  conclusions,  provided  only  that  the 
conclusions  be  logical,  should  be  one  of  strict  independence 
maintained  in  an  atmosphere  of  honest  intellectual  rivalry  and 
sincere  companionship.  Teacher  and  students  should  form  an 
intimate  commonalty  of  workers. 

VI 

It  is  the  duty  of  the  business  manager  to  keep  himself  con- 
tinuously informed  as  to  how  far  the  organization  is  fulfilling 
the  purpose  of  uniting  the  brain  worker  and  hand  worker  in 
common  efforts.  He  keeps  in  constant  touch  with  the  classes 
by  arranging  numerous  conferences  with  committees  from  the 
classes  to  discuss  the  aims  with  the  students  and  to  hear 
suggestions  from  them.  A  meeting  of  all  the  classes  and 
teachers  within  one  of  the  city  communities  is  held  from  time 
to  time,  in  which  an  effort  is  made  to  get  faculty  and  students 
freely  to  exchange  views.  Occasionally  the  entire  organiza- 
tion of  the  whole  of  Greater  Berlin  meets  in  convention  for 
similar  discussion.  I  was  not  privileged  to  attend  such  a 
convention,  but  Professor  Merz  is  said  to  have  conducted 
several  with  interesting  results.  The  business  manager  also 
edits  a  general  magazine  to  which  both  faculty  and  students 
freely  contribute  discussions  on  the  work  of  the  classes  or  on 
the  general  cultural  problems  disclosed  to  them  through  their 
work.  Perhaps  it  is  simply  the  new  broom,  but  in  the  few 
numbers  that  have  appeared  thus  far  the  student  contributions 
are  of  unusual  strength. 


EDUCATION,  OLD  AND   NEW  43 

The  success  of  the  undertaking  depends  most,  however,  upon 
the  ability  of  the  business  manager  to  build  up  a  body  of 
teachers  fitted  for  the  work.  I  have  attended  meetings  of 
the  present  faculty,  and  it  was  impressive  to  see  how  thoroughly 
they  had  absorbed  the  enthusiasm  and  the  strong  convictions 
of  their  leader.  At  these  meetings  the  aims  and  the  methods 
of  teaching  were  reviewed,  reports  of  experiences  or  observa- 
tions on  the  work  were  made,  and  general  discussions  carried 
on  which  were  very  lively  but  were  kept  strictly  to  the  subject 
under  discussion  by  the  chairman.  Professor  Merz  also  calls 
frequent  group  meetings  of  the  faculty,  to  which  he  usually 
invites  experts  in  that  particular  field  from  outside  the  organi- 
zation, as  well  as  those  men  whom  he  hopes  to  attach  to  the 
faculty.  These  smaller  meetings  are  used  wholly  to  review 
the  method  and  standard  of  the  work,  with  a  view  to  keeping 
it  on  the  desired  level  and  within  the  purpose  of  the  Asso- 
ciation. 

The  Association  has  existed  only  since  the  fall  of  19 19.  At 
the  end  of  the  first  year  a  faculty  of  118  members  were  con- 
ducting 125  classes  in  the  ten  communities  of  Greater  Berlin. 
All  the  teachers  were  doing  this  work  in  addition  to  their 
regular  occupation.  They  received  a  compensation  of  only 
fifty  marks,  less  than  one  dollar,  an  evening.  As  the  Associa- 
tion gains  in  permanency  it  will,  of  course,  have  to  have  its 
own  faculty.  This  must  practically  be  created  for  the  purpose, 
principally  from  men  of  younger  blood  who  are  able  to  adopt 
and  perfect  the  new  methods  demanded  by  the  new  situation. 
Above  all,  they  must  be  men  of  strong  individuality  and  deeply 
conscious  of  their  duty  to  society.  They  must  not  be  dema- 
gogues, but  sound  investigators  sanely  interested  in  the  edu- 
cation of  the  people.  It  will  matter  little  to  the  Association 
whether  such  men  have  been  teachers  by  profession  or  not, 
but  it  will  be  of  immense  benefit  to  the  universities  if  a  goodly 
number  from  their  faculty  will  aid  in  such  work  and  thus 
bring  the  old  system  into  contact  with  the  new. 

The  classes  of  the  Association  presuppose  the  regular  ele- 
mentary education  of  the  German  Volksschulc,  corresponding 


44  GERM  ANT  IN   TRAVAIL 

to  the  work  of  the  proposed  "  ground  schools."  Partly  to 
supply  such  preparation  to  those  who  have  never  had  the 
opportunity  to  acquire  it,  but  mainly  to  revive  it  for  those 
who  have  long  since  forgotten,  Professor  Merz  has  built  up  a 
subsidiary  organization  which  offers  preparatory  courses  in 
arithmetic  and  language.  The  courses  run  for  twelve  weeks 
of  two  hours  each,  and  are  conducted  by  university  students 
recommended  by  individual  professors  as  especially  fitted  for 
work  with  the  laboring  classes.  These  students  are  the  par- 
ticular hobby  of  Professor  Merz.  From  their  numbers  he 
hopes  to  recruit  the  future  permanent  faculty  of  the  Work- 
men's Educational  Association,  and  he  therefore  watches  care- 
fully to  see  which  of  the  students  best  develop  the  spirit  of 
cooperation  and  the  power  of  sympathetic  leadership  necessary 
for  the  success  of  the  venture. 

In  the  larger  organization  most  courses  run  in  four  quarters 
of  eight  evening  meetings  of  an  hour  and  a  half  each;  some 
have  two-hour  meetings,  and  a  very  few  meet  only  five  evenings 
in  a  quarter.  The  fee  paid  by  the  students  is  figured  at  fifty 
pfennigs  an  hour,  making  only  eight  marks  a  quarter  for  the 
longest  course.  The  fee  in  the  preparatory  work  is  only 
four  marks  a  course.  With  the  mark  worth  a  little  over  one 
cent  this  is,  of  course,  a  merely  nominal  fee,  meant  only  to 
express  the  initial  interest  of  the  worker  in  the  opportunities 
offered.  Most  of  the  finances  must  come  from  the  city  com- 
munities. Because  of  the  present  unsound  financial  status 
of  Germany,  and  because  of  the  reactionary  influences  that  are 
insidiously  manipulating  the  present  political  confusion,  the 
communities  are  not  so  liberal  as  the  success  of  the  under- 
taking warrants,  and  they  are  therefore  imposing  upon  the 
business  management  the  necessity  of  subtle  economies.  These 
are  simplified,  however,  by  the  enthusiastic  and  unselfish  sup- 
port of  the  faculty.  Meanwhile,  the  attendance  is  growing 
by  such  leaps  and  bounds  that  the  spirit  of  the  organization 
will  slowly  but  surely  permeate  the  communities  whatever 
ephemeral  phases  they  may  pass  through  within  the  next  few 
years.     Then  it  will  not  only  be  possible  to  perfect  the  plans 


EDUCATION,   OLD  AND  NEW  45 

of  the  founders  of  the  institution  by  building  up  a  permanent 
faculty  and  paying  them  properly  for  their  work,  but  the  en- 
lightenment and  sanity  and  strength  developed  within  the  many 
workers  of  the  classes  will  surely  lead  the  country  in  the  direc- 
tion of  sound  reconstruction  and  save  it  many  of  the  mad  ex- 
periments of  ignorance.  In  one  essential  respect,  at  least,  the 
workers  in  these  classes  have  a  distinct  advantage  over  the  rest 
of  the  country:  they  are  serious,  patient,  calm,  and  willing 
to  open  their  eyes. 

vn 

No  other  city  of  Germany  has  developed  a  Workmen's  Edu- 
cational Association  so  strong  as  that  of  Greater  Berlin.  In 
Munich  the  bitter  excesses  of  the  two  attempts  at  a  commu- 
nistic republic  have  created  a  distrust  of  all  popular  move- 
ments and  put  reaction  in  complete  control.  In  Leipzig  there 
is  an  organization  for  workmen's  education  which  is  imposing 
on  paper,  but  actually  is  in  the  same  hopeless  confusion  as  all 
the  public  institutions  of  this  most  radical  of  the  larger  German 
cities.  The  Leipzig  worker  has  not  yet  learned  that  to  see  is 
better  than  to  dream.  The  new  universities  of  Frankfurt  and 
Cologne  and  Hamburg  show  a  marked  interest  in  developing 
like  movements  but  they  all  seem  to  lack  an  organizer  of  the 
power  of  Professor  Merz.  Each  of  these  cities  is  accordingly 
wasting  strength  in  numerous  smaller  ventures  that  are  com- 
peting where  they  should  combine.  At  the  University  of 
Minister  an  institute  for  the  study  of  social  science  was 
established  in  the  spring  of  1920  for  the  express  purpose  of 
offering  intensive  training  to  labor  leaders,  or  to  students  who 
hope  to  develop  labor  leadership  into  a  sound  profession. 
The  founder  and  head  of  this  institution,  Professor  Plenge, 
is  a  man  who  enjoys  the  highest  respect  in  academic  circles 
as  in  the  important  labor  unions  of  Westphalia.  He  is  work- 
ing with  unusual  success  in  a  section  where  animosities  be- 
tween labor  and  capital  are  greatest. 


I 


III 

YOUTH  IN  REVOLT 


I 


N  MY  search  through  Germany  for  those  who  had  the 
power  to  clear  away  some  of  the  confusion  that  lay  upon 
the  country  and  to  find  some  basic  force  in  which  the 
people  had  faith  and  which  could  serve  as  the  foundation  of  new 
standards,  I  repeatedly  met  with  the  assertion  that  the  best 
men  of  this  type  had  gone  into  seclusion  to  keep  away  from 
the  ever  more  confounding  political  squabbles  and  economic 
passions  of  the  day.  One  of  the  very  best  of  these  men,  I 
was  often  told,  was  a  former  professor  of  philosophy  of  the 
University  of  Heidelberg,  who  had  been  driven  from  office  at 
the  outbreak  of  the  war  and  had  retired  to  a  secluded  spot 
near  Munich.  He  had  published  only  a  single  drama  and 
a  few  short  articles  since  then,  but  his  influence  among  those 
who  knew  him  was  so  strong  and  seemingly  so  inspiring  that  I 
determined  to  look  him  up  as  soon  as  I  came  to  Munich.  He 
lived  out  in  Percha,  a  little  village  near  the  Starnberger  Lake, 
in  a  small  villa  furnished  in  simple  old  furniture  and  secluded 
in  an  estate  of  old  high  trees,  with  rugged  walks  along  a 
winding  brook:  a  most  romantic  setting  for  the  radical  I  had 
expected  to  find.  The  man  himself  was  a  tall,  well-set-up, 
athletic  figure  of  middle  age,  with  powerful  but  pleasant  voice, 
long  curly  hair  and  kind  blue  eyes.  Instead  of  a  modern  radi- 
cal, he  appeared  to  be  a  last  remnant  of  the  old  idealistic 
German  students  of  the  type  of  Karl  Schurz,  who  had  led  the 
unsucccessful  revolution  of  1848.     In  his  attitude,  his  views 

46 


YOUTH  IN  REVOLT  47 

and  hopes,  he  proved  to  be  just  that:  "  the  last  Burschen- 
schafter,"  as  one  of  his  friends  later  described  him  to  me. 

His  idealism  had  made  him  a  pessimist  as  to  the  present 
conditions  of  Germany,  but  the  kind  of  pessimist  who  really 
suffers  for  lack  of  being  able  to  fix  his  faith  upon  some  definite 
and  radical  reserve  of  health  within  his  people.  The  times 
had  almost  got  his  nerve,  I  thought.  His  one  great  concern 
was  to  keep  alive  the  essential  resource  by  which  he  lived: 
the  ability  to  make  a  sharp  distinction  between  appearances 
assumed  by  things,  especially  in  a  crisis,  and  what  those  things 
really  and  inwardly  are.  "  Today,"  he  said,  "  all  public  ex- 
pressions are  merely  front,  and  if  any  of  the  nation's  seers 
claims  he  has  any  faith,  he  lies.  He  can  only  hope  that,  by 
some  miracle  or  other,  things  may  so  clear  that  he  can  see  and 
create  again.  At  present  there  is  nothing  genuine.  The  best 
the  poets  can  do  is  to  fight  hard  to  maintain  that  which  is  real 
and  true^about  things  as  they  were;  but  even  for  that  they 
had  best  retire.  Otherwise  they  will  be  contaminated  by  re- 
cent movements,  none  of  which  is  free  from  the  black  plague 
of  materialism,  —  a  materialism  that  increasingly  demanded  its 
toll  from  the  whole  of  German  life,  brought  on  the  war  and  the 
defeat,  and  finally  the  present  confusion." 

To  him  the  war  was  a  hopeless  one  from  the  beginning,  be- 
cause the  materialism  that  waged  it  was  already  on  the  verge 
of  bankruptcy.  Naturalism,  the  artistic  expression  of  ma- 
terialism, together  with  its  descendants,  impressionism  and 
cubism,  was  already  at  the  point  of  death.  In  the  footsteps 
of  Maeterlink  and  Verhaeren  a  new  spirituality  was  beginning 
to  appear;  though  it  too  had  its  cults  and  cants,  it  did  lead 
men  away  from  sham  and  inspired  them  to  pry  into  the  real 
nature  of  a  thing  before  they  followed  it.  When  war  came, 
the  men  of  this  new  movement  supported  it  enthusiastically, 
not  because  they  believed  in  those  who  were  carrying  it  on, 
but  because  they  thought  it  would  create  a  crisis  in  which 
men  would  be  what  they  are,  that  thus  the  last  remains  of 
materialism  would  be  forever  killed.  But  war  did  the  very 
opposite.    Man  got  to  be  neither  spiritual  nor  beastlike,  but 


48  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

merely  a  machine.  So  that  the  new  movement  was  rudely 
shaken,  and  now  it  is  necessary  not  only  to  begin  anew,  but  to 
remove  from  it  a  most  disturbing  confusion.  Meanwhile  the 
great  mass  is  deluding  itself  with  cant  of  various  sorts. 

He  then  spoke  of  one  movement  which  before  the  war  had 
best  embodied  the  new  spirit  and  which,  he  said,  may  rise 
again  and  carry  it  on:  a  movement  by  the  youth  of  Germany 
in  revolt  against  their  teachers  and  parents,  who  were  forcing 
them  to  deny  their  personal  ambitions,  instincts,  and  ideas  in 
favor  of  the  demands  of  the  state.  I  had  often  before  heard 
mention  of  this  movement,  and  of  its  unique  power  and  in- 
fluence on  German  secondary  education  and  the  workings  of 
the  young  German  mind.  Upon  examining  it  I  found  that  it 
had  almost  swept  the  famous  German  system  off  its  feet. 


n 


■ 


The  movement  started  in  1898  in  Steglitz,  a  rather  dignified 
suburb  of  Berlin  on  the  road  to  Potsdam.  Steglitz  had  an 
efficient  and  proud  Prussian  population  glorying  in  its  stern 
loyalty  to  the  demands  which  the  rising  state  was  pleased  to 
make,  and  fostering  an  awed  regard  for  Potsdam  traditions. 
Its  schools,  especially  its  classical  gymnasia,  were  of  the  most 
approved  standards.  Two  ideals  governed  them  in  the  edu- 
cation of  their  youth:  the  ideal  of  scholarship  based  upon 
Greek  culture,  and  the  ideal  of  service  to  the  state.  But 
the  first  was  strictly  subordinated  to  the  second.  The  state 
was  a  jealous  god  who  demanded  love  and  reverence  and  pious 
subordination  and  fear.  As  in  all  German  schools,  but  espe- 
cially in  the  classical  gymnasia,  there  was  close  contact  with  the 
church.  The  teachers  were  all  more  or  less  willing  assistants 
to  the  priests:  not  only  did  they  open  the  session  with  prayer, 
but  they  were  obliged  at  every  opportunity  to  harmonize  the 
mandates  of  the  stern  North  German  protestantism  with  the 
obligations  due  to  the  state.  Duty  ruled  every  phase  of  life 
within  the  school,  until  the  scholar  had  completely  surrendered 
his  individuality  to  it  and  had  thus  become  a  model  pupil 


YOUTH  IN  REVOLT  49 

and  the  joy  and  pride  of  his  parents.  Whatever  interfered 
with  this  duty,  this  stern  categorical  imperative  in  which  the 
universal  law  was  the.  state  guarded  on  one  side  by  the  church 
and  on  the  other  by  scholarship,  was  suppressed  with  much 
painstaking  severity  and  pious  zeal  by  overzealous  servants 
and  with  much  ruthless  cruelty  by  ambitious  climbers.  The 
personality  of  the  young  German  boys  was  ground  down  some- 
times into  very  delicate,  sometimes  merely  into  cruder  parts  of 
the  great  automaton.  In  the  small  studies  of  their  homes, 
alone  or  with  a  few  kindred  spirits,  these  little  chaps  would 
often  turn  into  enthusiastic  rebels  and  feed  voraciously  on  the 
ideas  of  some  radical  modern  philosopher  or  the  visions  of  some 
rebellious  poet.  But  even  among  themselves  there  would 
hardly  be  mention  of  political  action,  and  once  back  in  the 
school  they  immediately  became  again  the  awed  and  docile 
pupils.  The  system's  school  had  so  easy  a  success  with  this 
education  that  it  lived  in  smug  security  and  was  quite  un- 
prepared when  chance  circumstances  aroused  the  stifled  roman- 
ticism in  the  youth  of  Steglitz  and  fired  it  to  revolt. 

Steglitz  was  a  center  in  which  the  system  felt  comfortably 
secure.  It  had  a  loyal,  sturdy,  prosperous,  middle  class  popu- 
lation. Its  schools  were  of  the  very  best  with  highly  efficient 
faculties.  In  Steglitz  lived  the  aged  philosopher  and  so-called 
liberal,  Frederick  Paulsen,  an  old,  kind-hearted,  typically  north 
German  fighter,  and  a  puritanical,  evangelical  scholastic.  Phi- 
losophy and  theology  were  one  to  him;  with  sincere  convic- 
tion he  put  them  both  at  the  service  of  the  state.  His  ideas 
of  school  reform  were  the  proud  garment  in  which  the  system 
hid  in  Steglitz.  He  was  the  kind  of  servant  whom  the  system 
valued  most,  because  he  lent  himself  so  well  to  use  and  abuse 
without  a  vestige  of  suspicion.  But  because  the  system  felt 
so  safe,  it  brought  stronger  men  into  the  faculty,  and  among 
them  caught  a  personality  who  insisted  on  the  right  of  personal 
views.  Gurlitt  despised  those  of  his  colleagues  who  had  sur- 
rendered unconditionally  to  the  system;  he  considered  them 
shallow  or  dangerously  insincere.  Moreover,  he  did  not  be- 
lieve in  the  eternal  sanctity  of  a  fixed  set  of  standards  and  he 


5o  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

frankly  aired  his  point  of  view  before  his  class.  "  His  teaching 
was  an  undermining  of  sacred  heritages;  he  put  into  the  heads 
of  the  youth  ideas  which  robbed  them  of  their  peace  and 
upset  them;  he  taught  them  to  look  upon  the  world  from  an 
angle  which  had  never  been  taught  them  before,  which  had 
been  carefully  kept  from  them,  a  point  of  view  which  led  them 
from  the  proper  path  and  threw  many  a  one  heedlessly  from  a 
carefully  chosen  career  out  on  to  the  path  of  independent 
thinking.  He  spoke  of  things  that  were  taboo."1  Gurlitt 
seemingly  was  an  excellent  though  dangerous  teacher.  The 
system  would  have  got  rid  of  him  if  he  had  been  merely  a  local 
official,  but  he  was  uncomfortably  well  known  for  his  writings 
and  therefore,  according  to  the  methods  of  the  system,  had  to 
be  treated  cannily.  He  had  to  submit  to  a  great  deal  of 
chicanery  by  patriotic  colleagues.  At  an  official  inspection 
it  was  finally  determined  that  he  was  not  sufficiently  master 
of  his  subject  to  be  a  worthy  teacher.  The  school  quietly 
accepted  a  good  number  of  his  reforms  after  he  had  been  dis- 
missed and  danger  no  longer  threatened  timid  souls,  but  the 
pupils  had  been  seized  by  a  new  spirit  which  presented  a  far 
more  radical  danger  to  the  system. 

The  quarrels  of  their  teachers  had  been  strongly  sensed  and 
keenly  followed  by  the  boys.  It  made  them  alert  and  sharp- 
ened the  dull  rebellious  spirit  they  had  timidly  nourished  in 
their  private  studies.  "  If  teachers  fight  as  to  standards  where 
they  have  seemed  so  certain,  then  all  things  may  be  uncertain 
and  we  who  are  young  have  the  most  reason  to  investigate." 
Because  they  had  been  subdued  so  long,  they  set  out  upon  this 
search  with  all  the  excess  of  their  newly  discovered  revolu- 
tionary romanticism.  Above  all,  they  felt,  the  search  must 
be  their  own  and  not  in  any  way  directed  or  interpreted  by 
their  teachers  or  even  by  their  parents.  Indeed,  suspicion  of 
their  parents  was  even  deeper  in  these  rebellious  lads  than 
suspicion  of  their  teachers.  After  all,  the  teachers  were  merely 
carrying  on  their  jobs,  and  their  fine  talk  of  ideals  was  merely 

1  Hans  Blueher,  Wandervogel,  Charlottenburg,  iqiq,  p.  35-    I  have  freely 
taken  details  from  this  most  popular  but  curiously  biased  history. 


YOUTH  IN  REVOLT  51 

part  of  the  required  equipment;  there  was  no  pretense  of  the 
intimacy  of  the  home.  What  makes  the  revolt  so  interesting 
a  picture  is  that  it  gave  the  lads  their  first  real  taste  of  youth 
with  all  youth's  craving  for  romantic  life. 

in 

There  never  was  a  system  that  set  out  more  ruthlessly  to 
throttle  the  basic  impulses  of  youth  than  did  the  German 
gymnasium  of  the  last  few  decades,  where  the  classical  ideal, 
the  religious  ideal,  even  the  ideal  of  scholarship,  were  carefully 
prepared  to  make  the  young  man  into  an  efficient  instrument  of 
the  state.  All  free  movement  was  carefully  controlled  so  as 
to  prepare  for  this  main  purpose.  "  The  school  had  to  exert 
every  ounce  of  its  powers  so  to  train  the  intellect  of  youth 
from  the  start  that  at  a  certain  stage  of  its  maturity  it  could 
not  help  thinking  according  to  the  wishes  of  the  state  and 
acknowledging  a  high  degree  of  probability  to  the  ideals 
which  were  preached  in  school."  2  This  process  was  so  per- 
sistent and  so  carefully  clothed  in  almost  all  the  high  and 
accepted  ideals  of  the  age,  that  only  a  few  escaped  and  these 
few  only  after  loneliness,  pangs  of  conscience,  and  persecution 
by  their  friends.  In  Steglitz,  however,  conditions  were  ripe 
for  a  most  natural  reaction  to  overstressed  order;  and  so  it 
happened  that  the  German  youth  burst  forth  there  in  the 
greatest  of  their  spontaneous  mass  movements  to  free 
themselves  from  artificial  bonds,  an  outbustof  repressed  in- 
herent romanticism.  At  bottom  was  a  deep  spirit  of  revolt, 
and  among  a  few  consciousness  of  revolt,  against  the  system 
and  its  professional  teachers  and  most  of  all  against  the  parents, 
who  upheld  system  and  teachers  instead  of  being  their  sons' 
friends.  Where  such  consciousness  was  strong  it  sometimes 
violently  snapped  accustomed  bonds  and  created  a  cynical 
and  nihilistic  attitude  toward  all  culture,  but  there  was  some- 
times a  sane  reserve.  In  the  early  days  of  the  movement  one 
boy  writes  to  another:  "  You  write  that  love  for  our  parents 

2  Wandervogel,  p.  75. 


52  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

is  a  phrase  that  we  have  outgrown.  Don't  you  believe  it! 
Out  of  love  for  us  only  do  our  parents  take  these  steps  that 
bring  us  to  despair.  The  tragedy  of  it  is,  that  they  do  not 
understand  us  and  have  quite  a  wrong  conception  of  the  char- 
acter of  our  inclinations.  But  it  is  terrible  that  we  must  show 
them  gratitude  for  that  which  makes  us  so  unhappy.  That 
really  worries  me."  3 

The  leader  of  the  movement  was  not  a  reckless  spirit  simply 
seeking  a  chance  to  lead  his  fellows  on  mad  escapades  in  order 
to  sow  wild  oats  without  restraint.  He  was  rather  a  romantic 
rebel  of  the  type  of  Karl  Moor,  the  hero  of  every  German 
sentimental  youth  whose  passion  is  to  be  himself,  who  is  con- 
scious of  ideals  which  he  thinks  better  than  those  which  society 
imposes,  and  who  devotes  his  life  to  winning  respect  for  them  in 
the  face  of  social  opposition.  On  Sundays  the  leader  would 
take  his  friends  out  on  an  all-day  hike,  and  at  night  they  would 
lie  about  a  camp  fire  on  the  open  heath,  airing  their  grievances 
and  talking  of  things  that  were  taboo  at  school;  and  Karl 
Fischer,  or  "  Crazy  Fischer,"  as  the  boys  called  him,  would 
try  to  inspire  them  with  his  ideals.  He  was  none  too  clear, 
it  seems,  about  these  ideals,  and  therefore  could  not  give  a 
very  definite  direction  to  the  movement  at  the  start.  But  he 
was  very  serious  and  very  much  respected  by  the  friends  he 
gathered  about  him.  While  he  was  a  romanticist  with  a 
strong  passion  for  freedom  to  be  himself,  he  insisted,  like 
Karl  Moor,  on  the  severest  self-discipline.  He  was  a  passion- 
ate nationalist,  because  the  foreign  was  unreal  to  him  and  he 
feared  to  come  under  its  influence.  He  loved  to  revive  old 
Germanic  customs.  As  the  most  solemn  celebrations  of  his 
organization,  he  reinstituted  old  Germanic  rites  around  high 
bonfires  on  the  nights  of  the  summer  and  the  winter  solstices. 
While  he  was  willing  to  discard  the  accustomed  ideals  of  home 
and  church  and  militaristic  state,  he  insisted  that  the  new  ones 
must  be  found  by  fighting  for  self-possession  against  the  in- 
ward tendency  toward  excesses  and  passions.  Therefore, 
though  these  young  lads  were  in  revolt  against  their  elders, 
they  still  commanded  not  a  little  respect. 

3  Wandervogel,  p.  81. 


YOUTH  IN   REVOLT  53 


IV 

At  the  very  outset  Karl  Fischer  was  intent  not  upon  a 
local  club  but  upon  a  large  national  organization,  independent 
of  the  school  and  founded  and  maintained  by  youth.  Although 
the  school  forbade  all  such  societies,  Fischer  managed  to  dis- 
cover a  way  out  of  this  difficulty.  He  found  a  number  of 
parents  in  Steglitz  who  believed  in  his  sincerity  and  trusted 
his  intentions.  They  formed  a  "  Committee  for  Scholars,"  as 
they  called  it,  which  functioned  as  the  official  organization  but 
did  nothing  except  protect  the  boys  against  interference  and 
supply  funds  when  necessary.  The  boys  enrolled  their  names 
with  this  committee  in  a  so-called  Scholarenbuch  which  be- 
came famous  as  the  real  record  of  the  movement.  They  called 
themselves  Wandcrvogel,  birds  of  passage,  for  their  most  dis- 
tinctive mark  was  simply  that  they  wished  to  get  away,  when 
possible,  and  wander  out  into  the  open  heath  or  the  hills  and 
forests,  so  as  to  be  by  themselves.  The  first  long  hike  was 
conducted  by  Karl  Fischer  in  the  spring  of  1898  into  the 
Bohemian  forests,  Karl  Moor's  favorite  haunt.  Later,  as  the 
movement  spread  rapidly  over  Germany  and  Austria  and  into 
Switzerland,  short  tramps  were  arranged  for  every  week-end 
throughout  most  of  the  year.  For  the  school  vacations  long 
hikes  were  organized  that  took  the  boys  through  Germany 
and  into  those  parts  of  foreign  countries,  preferably  into 
Russia,  where  German  settlers  abounded.  The  Wandervogel 
is  described  as  "  a  brown,  dirty  fellow  with  a  soft  felt  hat, 
somewhere  a  few  green,  red  and  gold  ribbons,  on  his  back 
a  rucksack  and  over  his  shoulder  a  sooty  pot  and  a  guitar." 
They  scorned  hotels  and  mocked  at  the  rain  and  generally 
gloried  in  their  health  and  freedom.  They  delighted  in  their 
similarity  to  the  Traveling  Scholar  of  the  Middle  Ages,  studied 
his  habits  and  his  language  and  even  imitated  his  dialectics. 
There  was  no  tendency,  however,  to  imitate  the  habits  of 
drinking  and  duelling  of  the  modern  German  university 
student,  though  in  the  early  days  the  members  did  at  times 


54  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

enter  an  inn  and  mildly  carouse  for  an  evening.  Mostly  they 
sat  about  the  fires  with  groups  of  boys  from  some  distant 
locality  whom  they  had  joined  on  the  march,  and  discussed 
conditions  of  home  and  school;  finding  that  everywhere  the 
same  situation  prevailed  and  the  same  need  of  change. 

On  their  hikes  they  met  and  fraternized  with  tramps,  letting 
the  magic  of  tramp  slang  play  upon  them  and  adopting  much 
of  it.  They  listened  to  their  stories  and  their  songs  and  made 
a  record  of  many  of  them,  especially  of  their  epics.  At  first, 
as  they  marched  about,  and  at  their  fires  in  the  evening,  they 
sang  the  songs  of  the  Revolution  of  1848  and  some  of  the 
rebellious  German  student  songs,  but  as  they  came  into  contact 
with  the  simple  folk  in  the  hills  and  forests  of  Germany  and 
on  the  marshy  heaths,  they  discovered  a  new  store  of  folk 
songs  which  they  eagerly  snatched  up  and  set  to  music  for 
the  guitar,  the  magic  of  which  instrument,  they  claim,  had 
been  long  lost  in  Germany  and  was  rediscovered  by  them. 
These  folk  songs  one  of  their  leaders,  Hans  Breuer,  collected 
and  published  under  the  title  of  Zupjgeigenhansl  (Pick-fiddle 
John).  It  represents  a  real  contribution  to  German  popular 
song,  and  is,  according  to  the  statements  of  experts,  the  best 
collection  that  ever  has  been  made. 


So  these  young  rebels  grew  into  a  healthy  lot,  who  reveled 
in  nature  and  let  it  sharpen  their  senses  and  cleanse  their 
appetites,  who  taught  each  other  the  loyalty  of  friendship  and 
in  a  most  natural  way  strengthened  national  consciousness. 
But  whatever  these  benefits  they  were  still  rebels,  and  were 
slipping  more  and  more  from  the  control  of  their  teachers. 
The  school,  true  to  the  character  of  the  system,  did  not  dare 
proceed  openly  against,  the  organization,  though  the  more  con- 
scientious a  teacher  was  in  his  institutional  duty  toward  youth 
the  more  he  felt  himself  obliged  to  stamp  it  out  in  spite  of  all 
the  good  it  was  producing.  The  teachers  engaged  in  petty 
jealous  chicanery.    The  leaders  in  the  Wandcrvogel  called 


TOUTII  IN  REVOLT  55 

themselves  Bachants  from  the  title  of  the  leaders  of  the  old 
Traveling  Scholars,  derived  from  vagans  or  vagus  and  having 
no  connection  with  a  possible  worship  of  Bacchus.  But  the 
zealous  philologians  on  the  faculty  were  studiously  careless 
in  examing  the  title,  read  it  Bacchants,  and  raised  a  cry  of 
intemperance  against  the  boys.  A  fourteen-year-old  boy, 
writing  a  composition  on  his  vacation  days,  gave  an  enthusi- 
astic description  of  a  hike,  in  the  course  of  which  he  said, 
"  We  caroused  until  four  in  the  morning."  The  teacher  at  once 
made  a  case  of  discipline  of  it.  The  examination  of  the  boy 
proved  the  composition  a  mere  piece  of  imagination,  still  the 
teacher  drew  a  fat  red  line  under  the  remark  and  inserted 
the  exclamation:  "Lie!"  The  poor  chap  was  disciplined  and 
forbidden  to  take  part  in  further  excursions.  The  incident  also 
served  as  an  excuse  for  passing  a  rule  that  henceforth  over- 
night excursions  should  be  forbidden  to  boys  under  sixteen. 
These  methods,  however,  only  knit  the  boys  closer  together 
and  brought  to  light  more  clearly  the  essential  health  and  clean- 
ness of  the  movement.  Therefore  the  system  was  forced  to 
proceed  "  cleverly."  The  teachers  set  out  to  praise  the  move- 
ment extravagantly  and  to  patronize  it.  They  clothed  it  with 
their  own  regular  patriotic  motives  and  attempted  to  send 
into  its  rank  those  upon  whom  they  could  depend  to  make 
it  harmless.  Then  they  solicited  invitations  from  the  boys 
to  join  their  hikes.  They  hoped  that,  once  participating,  their 
standing  would  quickly  put  them  into  a  position  of  command, 
and  that  they  would  soon  win  the  boys  back  to  the  authority 
of  the  school.  At  first  the  boys  were  on  their  guard  against 
such  interference,  but  when  the  movement  grew  to  large  pro- 
portions and  its  organization  became  more  complex,  dissen- 
sions occurred  within  the  ranks.  The  teachers  with  their 
authority  then  had  a  better  chance  to  interfere,  and  they  very 
nearly  killed  the  spirit  that  had  originally  called  the  move- 
ment into  being. 

As  long  as  Karl  Fischer,  the  founder  and  romantic  idealist, 
could  watch  over  the  movement  and  keep  its  idealism  and 
romanticism  fresh,  it  ran  little  risk  of  successful  interference 


56  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

by  the  pedagogues.  Fischer  was  an  absolute  monarch  in  his 
way  and  tolerated  no  opposition.  As  the  movement  grew  he 
tried  to  hold  fast  to  his  authority  by  assuming  ever  higher 
sounding  titles.  But  by  the  time  he  was  about  to  exchange 
the  gymnasium  for  the  university,  his  organization  was  over- 
developed and  factions  were  splitting  off.  A  reaction  set  in 
against  his  authority  and  against  the  extreme  primitiveness  of 
his  romantic  ideals.  The  richer  boys  wanted  to  enjoy  ex- 
pressions of  their  freedom  in  more  refined  ways.  Instead  of 
hikes  they  organized  wagon  and  automobile  tours  through 
Germany  with  elaborate  hotel  accomodations.  Of  course,  they 
lost  their  spirit  of  revolt,  and  with  it  the  appeal  to  youthful 
romanticism.  At  once  the  teachers  protected  this  new  faction; 
soon  they  were  in  control  of  it  and  were  able  to  make  larger  and 
larger  inroads  upon  Fischer's  following.  Fischer  put  up  one 
last  fight  when  he  saw  his  followers  dwindling.  He  called 
his  friends  out  into  the  heath  to  the  old  camping  ground. 
There  they  met  at  night  about  a  huge  fire  and  looked  their 
situation  in  the  face  and  decided  to  stand  up  against  it.  They 
renewed  their  oaths  of  allegiance  to  each  other  and  went  back 
confident  of  victory,  took  up  the  fight,  and  not  long  after  were 
again  in  command.  Because  of  the  protection  that  the 
"  rational  factions  "  enjoyed,  they  were  freer  than  ever  from 
authority,  except  for  that  of  Fischer. 

But  when  Fischer  went  to  the  university,  he  had  to  leave 
the  direction  to  others.  Because  the  Wandervogel  was  now  a 
large  organization  it  systematized  itself  and  sought  more  help 
from  teachers  and  was  soon  split  again  into  various  factions. 
When  Fischer  angrily  interfered  he  was  tried  by  a  "  court  of 
honor/'  composed  largely  of  elders,  and  ousted. 

VI 

On  the  Rhine  lived  an  elderly  gentleman  named  Jansen, 
who  had  a  passion  for  youth  and  was  fascinated  by  the  spirit 
of  the  Wandervogel.  He,  too,  disliked  the  system  and  believed 
he  could  help  his  nation  by  clarifying  this  revolt.     He  con- 


TOUril   IN  REVOLT  57 

tributed  liberally  of  his  wealth,  spread  Wandcrvogel  propa- 
ganda throughout  the  country,  and  helped  to  organize  many 
branches  throughout  South  and  West  Germany.  But  Jansen, 
being  older,  was  more  a  free  thinker  than  a  primitive  roman- 
ticist. He  undertook  to  free  the  movement  of  false  ideals  and 
to  introduce  a  more  rational  outlook.  In  doing  so,  he  created 
new  discords  and  introduced  subtle  differentiations  that  only 
gave  the  school  a  better  chance  to  get  control. 

Finally  a  friend  of  Fischer's,  Hans  Breuer,  undertook  to 
revive  the  original  spirit  of  the  Wandervogel  and  created  the 
Wandcrvogel,  Dcutscher  Bund,  from  those  who  were  in 
sympathy  with  him  throughout  the  factions.  He  revived  the 
traditions  of  the  Traveling  Scholar,  and  with  the  guitar  con- 
ducted the  remarkably  successful  search  for  hidden  German 
folklore.  His  love  for  nature  made  him  an  enemy  of  alcohol, 
and  he  urged  abstinence  upon  the  members  of  the  Bund.  The 
interest  in  nature  of  these  "  unbacchanalian  Bachants "  is 
said  to  have  been  very  keen,  and  on  their  jolly  hikes  their 
interest  in  folklore  grew  and  took  the  place  of  the  traditional 
student  songs.  The  Zupfgeigenhansl  is  their  lasting  con- 
tribution to  German  culture.  These  boys  commanded  respect 
wherever  they  went. 

Again  the  system  saw  its  chance,  and  teachers  and  elders 
insinuated  themselves.  On  the  basis  of  the  clean  morals  of  the 
boys  they  started  a  movement  among  them  to  pledge  them- 
selves to  total  abstinence  and  consistent  democracy  in  their 
social  organization.  They  systematized  and  spoiled  and 
caused  dissension.  Because  the  boys  were  clean  they  per- 
suaded them  to  allow  girls  to  join  their  ranks.  While  that 
was  successful  for  a  time,  a  constant  emphasis  on  the  delight- 
ful simplicity  of  such  companionship  forced  a  distorted  con- 
sciousness of  the  relation  of  sex  upon  the  youth,  and  made 
that  relation  artificial.  They  managed  to  induce  the  Bund 
to  accept  into  its  ranks  the  boys  of  lower  schools,  and  thus 
brought  in  a  new  element  which  could  not  easily  be  absorbed. 
When  the  movement  was  thus  weakened,  the  teachers  took 
control,  so  that  they  were  soon  in  command  of  every  phase 


58  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

of  the  original  revolt.  "  Ten  years  had  passed.  The 
Wandervogel  movement  had  its  beginning  in  a  revolt  against 
the  pedagogues  and  parents  in  order  to  go  its  own  ways.  An 
enmity  had  broken  out  between  youth  and  old  age.  In  this 
enmity  youth  had  developed,  had  built  up  a  rich  culture,  and 
had  found  many  a  thing  that  had  formerly  been  kept  from  it. 
Now  it  set  about  finding  a  reconciliation,  —  and  inevitably  it 
had  to  sink." 


VII 


When  the  movement  was  sufficiently  weakened,  the  school 
no  longer  hid  its  purpose.  It  arbitrarily  put  in  teachers  as 
leaders  everywhere.  If  it  met  with  opposition  it  adopted  stern 
disciplinary  measures.  Just  before  the  war  many  a  youngster 
had  to  suffer  under  its  persecution.  The  state  also  had  its 
say.  It  set  about  to  change  the  enthusiasm  for  German 
national  character  back  into  systematic  loyalty  to  the  state, 
and  the  desire  for  outdoor  life  into  a  system  of  military  drill. 
The  Wandervogel  was  to  be  the  backbone  of  the  German  Boy 
Scouts  or  "  Young  Guard,"  as  the  War  Office  called  it.  When 
this  last  move  was  made,  many  of  the  youngsters  threatened 
a  new  revolt.  In  the  summer  of  1914,  however,  General  von 
der  Goltz,  holding  a  grand  review  of  the  Young  Guard  at 
Heidelberg,  fired  them  to  such  a  patriotic  heat  that  they  pub- 
licly denounced  their  former  ideals  and  openly  broke  with  those 
who  still  insisted  on  them.  It  was  for  championing  this  de- 
nounced minority  that  the  Professor  of  Philosophy,  who  first 
told  me  this  story,  lost  his  position  at  the  university. 

It  is  well  worth  noting,  however,  that  the  spirit  of  revolt, 
and  a  strong  consciousness  of  the  artificiality  of  the  system, 
was  extremely  active  in  Germany  before  defeat  brought  the 
system  into  disrepute.  To  this  spirit  many  a  man  is  now 
pinning  his  faith,  and  is  anxiously  looking  for  the  time  when 
it  will  appear  again  as  strong  and  healthy  as  it  appeared  in 
these  boys  in  the  days  before  the  war.  There  are  only  a 
very  few  of  these  boys  left.  When  the  war  broke  out,  they 
saw  in  it  the  hour  when  men  would  throw  off  artificiality  and 


TOUril  IN   REVOLT  59 

become  themselves;  or  else  they  saw  their  country  in  distress 
and  had  no  time  or  patience  to  analyze  the  system's  responsi- 
bility in  bringing  war  about.  What  fiery  romantic  youth 
would  have  done  otherwise?  They  were  among  the  first  and 
the  most  reckless  in  battle,  and  the  system,  of  course,  did  not 
have  the  interest  nor  yet  the  wisdom  to  spare  them.  So  today 
they  are  gone  or  broken,  but  faith  in  their  spirit  still  remains, 
and  this  spirit  may  yet  become  active  and  take  a  strong  part 
in  leading  the  country  out  of  its  confusion. 


IV 

THE   PEOPLE   OF   BERLIN  AND   THEIR  THEATRE 


I 


F  THE  Prussian  state  of  mind,  in  its  present  confusion 
and  its  efforts  to  find  a  way  out,  can  be  read  in  any  one 
institution,  it  is  in  the  attitude  of  the  people  of  Berlin 
to  their  theatre.  They  feel  that  in  every  practical  activity, 
as  well  as  in  their  rather  helplessly  childish  but  laborious 
attempts  at  political  reorganization,  they  are  not  masters  of 
themselves  but  subject  to  the  endless  obligations  which  de- 
feat has  heaped  upon  them.  Even  though  they  are  at  work 
as  busily  as  any  nation  is  today,  they  go  about  their  work 
with  the  staggering  dullness  which  comes  from  a  growing 
realization  of  defeat.  Work  is  both  a  panacea  and  an  opiate 
to  them,  but  does  not  as  yet  express  consciousnes  of  accom- 
plishment. In  the  theatre,  however,  they  are  free:  free  to 
exhibit  the  heavy  scum  of  passions  which  the  war  produced, 
and  the  distorted  growth  of  recent  decades  which  the  war 
has  brought  to  light;  but  free  also  to  express  whatever  attempts 
at  clarifying  are  going  on  beneath,  attempts  which  are  being 
watched  longingly  by  an  ardent  minority.  In  the  theatre, 
they  claim,  they  are  trying  to  find  means  of  expressing  them- 
selves as  they  now  are;  there,  they  say,  they  are  allowed  to 
be  themselves,  and  can  still  put  into  symbols  and  symbolic 
action  the  forces  by  which  they  hope  to  carry  on. 

Both  in  theory  and  by  long  tradition  the  theatre  in  Germany 
is  quite  a  different  institution  from  the  theatre  in  America  or 
in  England.  It  is  essentially  neither  a  commercial  undertak- 
ing nor  a  place  of  entertainment,  but  a  national  forum  for 

60 


BERLIN   PEOPLE  AND   THEIR   THEATRE    61 

self-expression.  It  still  shows  clearly  that  its  real  beginnings 
lie  not  so  much  in  the  attempts  of  the  church  of  the  Middle 
Ages  to  bring  its  miracles  vividly  before  the  people,  or  in 
popular  pageantry,  but  rather  in  the  pulpit  of  the  Protestant 
reformer,  in  protesting  German  philosophy,  and  in  humanistic 
idealism.  The  history  of  the  German  theatre  is  not  the  story 
of  the  increasing  success  of  playwright,  manager  and  actor  in 
discovering  the  temper  of  the  audience  and  humoring  it,  of 
"  putting  a  play  across  "  in  Broadway  style  and  making  large 
fortunes.  That  has  been  done  in  Germany,  of  course,  as  long 
as  there  has  been  a  theatre.  But  plays  of  this  nature  are 
not  allowed  to  appear  in  the  subsidized  public  theatres  or  even 
in  those  private  theatres  whose  managers  profess  artistic 
standards.  They  have  large  tinseled  houses  of  their  own 
that  make  their  appeal  frankly  to  those  who  seek  mere 
entertainment.  These  theatres  are  often  very  prosperous 
while  the  others  must  depend  on  subsidies,  but  they  do  not 
command  popular  respect  and  their  plays  are  soon  forgotten. 
Throughout  the  German  people  there  is  unusual  differenti- 
ation between  a  show  and  a  drama.  The  drama  must  produce 
characters  and  the  characters  must  be  representative  of  the 
life  the  nation  is  leading  or  would  like  to  lead.  Tt  must  ex- 
press the  basic  forces  of  the  nation,  its  essential  common 
standards,  in  characters  that  will  reveal  the  people  to  them- 
selves. So  the  people  sit  reverent  and  puzzled,  often,  before 
the  drama  and,  in  an  attitude  of  expectation,  let  its  visions  play 
upon  them.  Most  of  the  dramas  that  the  German  people  now 
call  great  were  but  little  suited  to  the  stage  on  which  they  first 
appeared,  and  were  full  of  unaccustomed  vision  to  the  audi- 
ence; but  because  they  gradually  and  forcibly  disclosed  the 
people  to  themselves  they  were  accepted  as  great  national 
possessions. 

The  theatres  at  which  these  dramas  appear  do  not  advertise 
in  newspapers  excepting  for  a  brief  announcement.  Dramatic 
critics,  therefore,  are  not  press  agents  in  any  sense  but  serious 
students  of  the  drama  who  jealously  watch  over  its  function. 
The  greater  freedom  of  the  press,  resulting  from  the  revolution, 


62  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

has  made  them  even  more  exacting  than  in  the  times  when 
royal  patronage  had  still  to  be  in  some  measure  considered; 
though  it  is  expressive  of  the  part  that  the  drama  plays  among 
the  people,  that  in  no  phase  of  public  life  has  arbitrary  royal 
interference  been  less  successful  than  in  dramatic  criticism. 
Even  the  sneering  displeasure  of  the  Crown  Prince  at  the  first 
performance  of  Hauptmann's  anti-militaristic  Festival  Play 
in  1 913,  which  was  to  celebrate  the  hundredth  anniversary  of 
Napoleon's  fall,  succeeded  in  influencing  hardly  a  single  one 
of  the  better  critics  of  the  day. 

11 

The  theatre,  therefore,  assumes  a  role  of  first  importance  in 
the  struggle  of  the  people  for  a  new  direction  to  their  existence, 
and  all  the  forces  of  this  struggle  come  together  and  clash 
furiously  on  the  stages  of  Berlin.  The  fury  of  this  struggle 
results  from  the  impact  of  four  principal  forces:  the  old 
theatres  of  the  crown  that  have  been  turned  over  to  the  state 
and  are  expected  to  be  the  great  popular  forum  for  the  ex- 
pressions of  the  new  democracy;  the  great  Berlin  Drama 
League  that  has  sprung  spontaneously  from  the  so-called 
lower  classes  as  an  expression  of  themselves;  the  theatres  of 
Reinhardt,  who  claims  to  be  able  to  unite  a  commercial  ven- 
ture with  the  ideal  of  preserving  for  the  people  the  best  of 
their  dramatic  expressions ;  and  finally  the  more  or  less  frankly 
commercial  ventures  that  measure  the  desires  of  the  people 
merely  by  box-office  receipts. 

The  last  class  naturally  comprises  the  largest  number  of 
theatres,  especially  as  the  picture  plays  must  be  included. 
The  latter  are  drawing  tremendous  crowds  in  Berlin  today  as 
they  are  everywhere.  Because  of  the  large  salaries  it  can 
afford  to  pay,  the  moving  picture  industry  is  drawing  upon 
some  of  the  very  best  and  most  convincingly  artistic  actors 
of  the  country  and  on  the  foremost  scenic  artists.  But  the 
very  best  efforts  of  the  artist  are  turned  into  sensational 
effects  by  money-mad  managers,  who,  by  the  promise  of  a  new 


BERLIN   PEOPLE   AND   THEIR   THEATRE    63 

refinement    in    excitement,    lure    the    crowds    to  stupefying 
entertainment. 

The  other  entertainment  theatres  are  an  equally  sorry  sight. 
Here  all  the  degrading  influences  of  war  and  defeat,  of  profit- 
eering and  senseless  passions,  are  exploited.  The  reviews 
are  crude,  splashy,  and  poorly  played  imitations  of  London 
music  halls,  mixed  with  awkward  attempts  at  French  sug- 
gestiveness;  the  comedies  are  disgustingly  sensuous  and  extrav- 
agant, and  the  more  serious  shows  play  to  the  cheapest 
war-time  passions  and  prejudices  of  the  audience.  Excepting 
for  the  motion  picture  houses,  however,  all  theatres  of  this 
class  are  exceedingly  expensive,  so  that  they  attract  only  the 
very  rich,  or  rather  that  large  class  of  people  who,  by  war-time 
speculations,  have  temporarily  come  into  a  large  amount  of 
spending  money.  That  this  is  a  passing  crowd  is  as  plain  as 
it  is  fortunate,  and,  its  money  gone,  its  theatres  will  go  with  it. 
Today  the  number  of  these  theatres  is  rather  greater  than 
before  the  war.  Then  Berlin  could  boast  of  several  private 
theatres  whose  managers  had  the  highest  standards  and,-  not 
being  interfered  with  by  suggestions  from  the  court,  often 
supported  venturesome  dramatists  who  were  opening  up  im- 
portant new  paths  for  the  drama.  But  the  refined  audience 
that  supported  such  theatres  has  been  financially  ruined  by 
the  war,  and  the  managers,  in  order  to  live,  are  forced  to 
draw  the  crowds  of  profiteers  and  to  pamper  their  dull  nerves 
with  large  doses  of  strong  stimulants.  It  is  interesting  to  note 
that  in  the  judgment  of  almost  every  reputable  critic  of  Berlin 
the  famous  Sudermann  is  rated  as  belonging  to  this  category. 
He  maintains  a  theatre  of  his  own,  where  every  season  a  new 
play  or  two  of  his  is  produced  before  an  audience  that  likes 
the  carefully  respectable  way  in  which  he  excites  its  nerves, 
and  which  remains  loyal  to  him,  as  an  addict  is  loyal  to  his 
stimulant,  in  spite  of  the  warnings,  anger  and  ridicule  of 
critics.  The  composition  of  the  Sudermann  audience  seemed 
very  different  from  that  at  any  other  theatre  of  the  city.  It 
appeared  to  be  composed  of  that  remnant  of  the  upper  middle 
class  and  of  officialdom  that  has  known  how  to  escape  the 


64  GERMANT  IN   TRAVAIL 

financial  ruin  that  the  war  brought  to  most  of  them.  It  has 
retained  Sudermann  to  entertain  it  with  drawing-room  inde- 
cencies and  comforting  satires  on  the  new  order,  which  it 
hopes  will  soon  pass  over. 

However  numerous  the  class  frequenting  the  theatres  of  this 
general  type,  it  is  an  inactive  class  and  one  of  stupid  spirit: 
not  at  all  expressive  of  what  the  public  ultimately  will  demand. 
It  is  simply  a  symptom  of  the  post-war  disease.  The  attempts 
to  stamp  it  out  are  indicative  of  what  may  ultimately  be  ex- 
pected of  Germany.  All  the  remaining  theatres,  those  of 
Reinhardt,  of  the  state,  and  of  the  People's  Drama  League, 
are  working  with  varying  degrees  of  honesty  and  success  at 
the  process  of  self-expression. 

in 

As  far  as  I  could  judge  from  a  personal  interview  with 
Reinhardt,  he  is  absolutely  convinced  that  his  theatres  are 
serving  only  the  interests  of  the  best  drama  and  are  devoted 
to  enriching  the  literary  tastes  of  the  people.  He  is,  clearly 
enough,  a  masterly  genius  of  the  stage,  rather  than  of  the 
drama;  but  in  his  ideals  he  is  deeply  sincere.  By  almost  all 
dramatic  critics  of  Berlin,  however,  and  by  a  large  proportion 
of  the  public  seriously  interested  in  the  drama,  Reinhardt  is 
passionately  hated  as  a  man  professing  an  ideal,  but  in  practice 
seeking  merely  to  please  in  order  to  enrich  himself.  In  a 
large  mass  meeting  of  Berlin  workers,  for  example,  called  to 
discuss  the  relation  of  the  drama  to  the  people,  I  heard  every 
mention  of  Reinhardt,  even  when  casually  made,  answered  by 
an  angry  sneer  from  the  crowd.  Neither  Reinhardt  nor  his 
critics  are  altogether  right.  As  I  will  try  to  show,  Reinhardt 
has  got  on  a  curiously  wrong  track  and  is  reluctant  to  leave 
it.  The  passion  of  his  critics  is  largely  due  to  the  extreme 
jealousy  and  pride  with  which  they  guard  their  ideals  of  the 
importance  of  the  theatre  in  the  scheme  of  national  life. 

Aside  from  a  few  commercial  ventures  such  as  the  Theater 
des  Western,  where  reviews  of  comic  operas  are  staged  in  the 


BERLIN   PEOPLE  AND   THEIR   THEATRE    65 

new  extravagant  Berlin  style,  but  in  connection  with  which 
Reinhardt's  name  never  appears,  he  controls  three  theatres: 
an  experimental  stage,  called  the  Kammerspiele;  the  old,  his- 
toric Deutsches  Theater,  which  for  forty  years  has  been  the 
pathfinder  of  the  German  drama;  and  his  new  immense  circus 
theatre,  the  Grosses  Schauspielhaus.  The  Kammerspiele  is  a 
small  experimental  stage  of  the  highest  order,  where  modern 
plays  of  all  nations  are  tried  out,  or  modernized  studies  of 
older  plays  are  staged,  by  the  best  actors  in  Reinhardt's  em- 
ploy. It  deserves  much  credit  because  of  its  broadening  in- 
fluences, but  it  is  an  exclusive  club  for  connoisseurs,  so  to 
speak,  small  and  very  expensive.  Because  its  influence  upon 
the  public  is  indirect  only,  it  is  not  appreciated  as  it  deserves. 
Moreover,  much  of  the  time  of  the  very  best  of  Reinhardt 
players,  men  like  Moissi  and  Krauss,  two  of  the  most  talented 
actors  of  the  German  stage,  is  occupied  by  the  Kammerspiele 
so  that  they  can  appear  only  occasionally  before  the  larger 
audiences,  which  strongly  resent  such  treatment. 

In  Reinhardt's  two  remaining  theatres  the  prices  are  popular, 
and  a  repertory  is  selected  with  the  avowed  intention  of  giving 
the  people  the  best  drama  in  the  best  possible  setting.  It  is 
intensely  interesting  to  observe  that  popular  opposition  to 
Reinhardt  sets  in  at  this  very  point.  When  democratic 
Germany  shook  off  the  influence  of  the  princes  from  the  many 
court  theatres,  it  wanted  no  substitute  for  their  authority. 
Because  Reinhardt  presumes  to  educate  them  from  above, 
they  resent  his  attitude  and  mistrust  his  acts.  If  he  had 
strongly  persisted  in  his  attitude,  he  might  have  convinced 
the  people,  but,  instead  of  that,  he  made  apparent  concessions 
in  organization  and  tried  to  flatter  their  whims  in  the  pro- 
duction of  his  plays.  In  both  respects  he  is  tragically  in  the 
wrong.  Through  the  attempts  to  please  the  audience  the 
artistic  quality  of  the  Deutsches  Theater,  even,  has  seriously 
suffered.  With  each  new  play  produced  the  effects  become 
more  striking  and  sensational.  Thereby  his  intentions  become 
more  obvious  to  the  audience,  and  its  anger  turns  into  mock- 
ery and  scoffing. 


66  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

The  Grosses  Schauspielhaus  is  an  old  circus,  skillfully  trans- 
formed into  an  immense  theatre  seating  over  three  thousand 
people  in  a  semicircle  about  a  gigantic  stage.  This  consists 
first  of  a  large  but  somewhat  shallow  picture-frame  stage  of 
the  ordinary  sort,  in  front  of  which  a  spacious  oblong  platform 
extends  out  into  the  auditorium.  Below  this  second  stage 
runs  a  wide,  deep  pit  beneath  the  level  of  the  front  seats.  It 
is  not  at  all  a  stage  as  we  know  it,  but  a  tremendous  forum. 
With  the  Greek  drama  Reinhardt  has  achieved  remarkable 
effects  upon  this  stage,  but  it  is  an  impossible  arrangement  for 
a  modern  drama  that  does  not  depend  upon  spectacular 
crowds  for  its  effect.  When  the  crowds  are  not  in  the  pit  of 
the  stage,  the  actors  must  so  strain  their  voices  to  carry  across 
the  expanse  between  themselves  and  the  audience  that 
that  struggle  occupies  the  attention  of  the  audience  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  drama.  When  the  crowds  fill  the  pit  their 
effect  becomes  so  spectacular  that  again  the  real  dramatic 
effect  is  lost.  I  saw  an  excellent  performance  there  of  Romain 
Rolland's  Danton;  excellent,  in  that  each  separate  part  was 
admirably  interpreted  by  very  able  actors;  but  Danton's  roars 
would  not  let  you  forget  that  you  were  sitting  in  a  former 
circus,  and  in  the  last  act  the  trial  of  Danton  before  the 
revolutionary  tribunal  and  in  the  presence  of  the  turbulent 
crowds  of  Paris  was  so  magnificently  exciting  that  Rolland's 
part  in  the  creation  was  entirely  lost.  One  feels  that  Rein-  * 
hardt  has  grown  jealous  of  the  popularity  of  the  startling 
effects  of  the  screen  and  has  determined  to  compete  by  offer- 
ing large  cinematograph  effects  upon  this  stage.  The  theatre 
very  clearly  is  a  failure,  however  honest  Reinhardt's  intention 
may  be.  But  it  is  a  costly  undertaking  and  one  he  is  there- 
fore reluctant  to  abandon.  To  maintain  it,  however,  his  plays 
are  becoming  more  and  more  spectacular  and  less  and  less 
artistic.  Reinhardt's  unusual  genius  may  find  a  way  out.  He 
claims  that  the  problem  is  complicated  and  fascinating  and 
that  he  has  not  yet  been  able  to  discover  the  real  possibilities 
of  this  stage.  Meanwhile  the  opposition  is  growing  from  day 
to  day.    The  distrust  of  him  may  soon  be  so  deeply  rooted  that 


BERLIN  PEOPLE  AND   THEIR    THEATRE    67 

no  solution  will  be  able  to  convince.  In  order  to  attract  an 
audience  he  will  then  be  wholly  dependent  upon  sensational 
effects. 

In  the  summer  of  1920  Reinhardt  startled  the  theatre  world 
of  Germany  by  announcing  that  he  had  retired  from  all  of  his 
Berlin  theatres  in  favor  of  his  friend  Max  Hollaender.  After 
the  first  shock  the  Berlin  critics  simply  discounted  this  state- 
ment. Hollaender,  who  is  a  shrewd  manager,  they  considered 
simply  a  dummy;  and  they  believed  that  Reinhardt  was  trying 
to  escape  the  increasing  storm  of  criticism  to  be  free,  the 
better  to  carry  on  a  difficult  fight  he  was  waging  with  the 
state  authorities  over  the  heavy  amusement  tax.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  Reinhardt's  activity  at  his  Berlin  theatres  has  decreased 
but  little.  He  is  devoting  much  time  to  an  important  venture 
in  Austria,  and  in  the  late  fall  of  1920  he  made  an  elaborate 
tour  with  a  picked  ensemble  through  the  theatres  of  Scandi- 
navia; but  he  is  also  putting  in  a  good  deal  of  hard  work  at 
his  old  theatres,  much  as  before. 

Just  before  he  publicly  announced  his  retirement,  but  when 
the  rumor  of  it  was  already  widespread,  I  had  an  opportunity 
to  question  him  in  his  summer  castle  in  Salzburg,  Austria. 
There  he  outlined  his  attitude  toward  his  Berlin  activities  in 
idealistic  terms,  but  clearly  showed  the  strain  he  was  laboring 
under  because  of  the  criticisms  resulting  from  the  direction 
in  which  his  circus  theatre  was  forcing  him.  (i  The  Berlin 
theatres,  once  the  leading  field  for  the  development  of  the 
stage  and  the  best  drama,"  he  said,  "  are  seriously  in  danger 
of  decay.  The  Prussian  passion  for  work  and  efficiency, 
powerful  enough  before  the  war,  is  only  heightened  by  the 
necessities  imposed  upon  the  country  by  defeat.  People  of 
Berlin  no  longer  have  leisure  to  enjoy  art  as  it  must  be  enjoyed. 
They  go  to  the  theatre  as  tired  business  men  do,  with  ragged 
nerves,  and  demanding  excitement  and  sensation.  Meanwhile 
the  moving  picture  industry  is  drawing  the  actors  away  from 
the  best  theatres.  The  star  system  is  again  forcing  out  the 
repertory  program.  To  produce  the  best  plays  you  must 
have  a  company  of  first-rate  actors,  so  that  every  part  is  taken 


68  GERMANY  IN  TRAVAIL 

by  an  artist,  and  you  must  keep  them  fresh  by  a  repertory 
program  which  demands  much  devotion  and  understanding  of 
the  drama,  as  well  as  much  time.  The  high  salaries  in  the 
motion  picture  industry,  especially  attractive  now  that  living 
is  so  high,  have  seriously  impaired  the  devotion  to  art.  When 
first-rate  actors  are  asked  to  play  secondary  parts,  they  prefer 
the  large  salaries  of  the  motion  picture  manager  and  thus  spoil 
the  chances  for  an  artistic  ensemble.  Then,  too,  the  state 
finds  it  necessary  to  levy  a  tax  as  high  as  thirty  per  cent  on  all 
box-office  receipts  instead  of  coming  to  the  help  of  the  theatre 
as  it  did  once.  This  makes  for  very  high  admission  fees  and 
consequently  a  greater  dependence  of  the  director  upon  the 
whims  of  the  audience.  As  a  result  the  Berlin  theatre  is 
rapidly  undergoing  a  change.  The  repertory  program  has 
already  disappeared  from  a  number  of  the  best  theatres  and 
some  annual  hit  is  being  featured  in  Broadway  style." 

Reinhardt  believes  that  good  plays  simply  cannot  be  given 
in  artistic  fashion  on  the  star  plan.  It  certainly  is  a  fact  that 
the  high  standard  of  the  German  stage  was  achieved  only 
after  the  star  system  had  made  way  in  favor  of  the  repertory 
theatre.  It  is  equally  true  that  wherever  the  star  system  is 
introduced  today,  crude  and  sensational  entertainment  takes 
the  place  of  the  old  artistic  repertory.  Reinhardt  professes 
that  he  has  retired  to  avoid  devoting  himself  to  that  sort  of 
thing,  though  the  change  makes  it  possible  for  the  theatres  to 
continue,  and  to  hold  their  good  actors  because  they  are  not 
required  to  attend  rehearsals  after  the  season's  play  is  once 
well  started,  and  consequently  have  considerable  spare  time 
to  sell  to  the  motion  pictures.  In  Berlin,  Reinhardt  thinks 
only  the  large  people's  playhouses  like  the  circus  theatre  will 
be  able  to  maintain  the  old  artistic  program.  The  tremendous 
size  of  such  a  house  makes  it  possible  to  sell  admission  at  a 
low  price,  to  get  an  unsophisticated  audience  receptive  to  ideal 
effects,  and  thus  give  the  actor  and  director  a  proper  atmos- 
phere in  which  to  work.  The  large  receipts  also  enable  the 
payment  of  good  salaries  to  the  actors. 

However,  as  already  indicated,  Reinhardt  is  not  acting  boldly 


BERLIN   PEOPLE  AND   THEIR   THEATRE    69 

in  accordance  with  his  expressed  conviction,  but  is  allowing 
himself  to  be  drawn  into  an  endless  system  of  compromises. 
Even  the  "  People's  Theatre,"  as  he  delights  to  call  his  Grosses 
Schauspielhaus,  is  becoming  more  and  more  a  spectacle,  rather 
than  a  stage  upon  which  the  nation's  best  dramas  are  inter- 
preted for  the  people.  So  Reinhardt  has  lost  caste  today. 
But  this  is  simply  because  in  the  national  misery  the  ideals 
to  which  he  was  perhaps  honestly  aspiring  have  been  neglected 
in  favor  of  his  practical  activity  as  a  producer.  Reinhardt 
is  an  actor  and  an  unusually  ingenius  manipulator  of  stage 
effects.  Of  the  stern  ideals  of  the  German  drama,  and  of  its 
intimate  relation  to  the  inner  life  of  the  people,  he  has  been 
an  ardent  student,  but  is  not  a  naturally  endowed  interpreter. 
A  growing  consciousness  of  this  accounts,  no  doubt,  for  the 
popular  spirit  of  mistrust  in  which  he  is  being  shunned  by 
those  who  are  searching  the  visions  of  their  poets  to  help  clear 
away  their  own  confusion. 

IV 

When,  with  the  revolution,  the  state  assumed  control  of  the 
old  court  theatres  of  Berlin,  it  concentrated  all  its  efforts  at 
reform  upon  the  theatre  devoted  to  the  spoken  drama.  In 
those  early  days  of  the  revolution  the  state  officials  were  not 
only  extremely  radical,  but  were  amusing  themselves  and 
frantically  seeking  popular  favor  by  proposing  immediate 
realization  of  Utopian  theories  for  popularizing  the  institutions 
of  art.  The  theatre  employees,  both  high  and  low,  organized 
a  sort  of  soviet  of  their  own.  Yet  the  changes  actually  effected 
were  unusually  sober  and  rational.  There  seems  to  be  no 
doubt  that  the  almost  reverent  attitude  of  Germans  toward 
the  drama  acted  as  a  powerful  check  upon  over-hasty  oper- 
tions,  although  it  must  be  admitted  that  some  of  the  Utopian 
proposals  would  have  cost  the  state  far  too  much.  The  most 
important  change  effected  was  to  oust  from  the  Kaiser's  own 
large  theatre  in  the  heart  of  Berlin  the  old  officials  who  had 
been  subservient  to  his  whims,  and  to  appoint  as  general 
manager  Dr.  Leopold  Jessner,  who  is  genuinely  liberal  in  his 


7o  GERMANY  IN  TRAVAIL 

views  and  has  also  won  an  enviable  reputation  as  a  thorough 
scholar  and  as  an  able  interpreter  of  the  drama.  In  talking 
to  managers  of  other  large  city  theatres  I  found  only  the 
highest  respect  for  Dr.  Jessner's  ability,  and  never  once  heard 
mention  of  his  politics.  Dr.  Jessner  was  given  complete  con- 
trol of  the  theatre  and  of  its  work.  He  enjoys  the  confidence 
of  the  public,  and  the  state  is  wise  enough  to  see  that  in  matters 
of  artistic  standards  constant  interference  by  an  always  chang- 
ing popular  taste  is  detrimental  to  the  people's  good. 

The  theatre  was  made  accessible  to  the  people  by  issuing 
very  reasonable  subscriptions  to  its  repertory,  and  by  turning 
over  a  large  part  of  the  house  for  several  evenings  of  each 
week  to  the  People's  Drama  League.  Because  of  the  financial 
embarrassment  of  the  state  this  policy  has  not  yet  been  fully 
realized.  On  first  nights  and  at  other  gala  performances  sub- 
stantial prices  are  still  being  charged  so  as  to  flatter  the 
profiteer  into  involuntary  contributions  to  a  popular  institu- 
tion. Nevertheless  the  state  pays  to  Dr.  Jessner's  work  a 
subsidy  of  many  millions  marks  a  year. 

Dr.  Jessner  is  the  very  antithesis  of  Reinhardt.  Already 
he  has  swept  the  tinsel  of  the  Prussian  trappings  off  the  former 
emperor's  favorite  stage.  He  believes  that  instead  of  working 
by  means  of  mass  effects  in  decoration,  chorus,  ballet  and 
other  such  stimulants  for  tired  nerves,  the  stage  should  seek 
its  effects  by  presenting  spiritual  conflict  as  directly  as  possible, 
in  a  simple,  convincing  way.  He  believes  that  audiences 
must  be  educated  to  this  kind  of  performance  and  that  sim- 
plicity will  most  surely  awaken  in  them  a  healthy  reaction 
to  art.  His  genius  lies  in  his  ability  to  impart  to  his  actors  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  the  peculiar  character  of  the  individual 
plays,  to  train  them  in  a  rich  and  clear  diction,  and  by  simple 
effects  to  reduce  background  and  costumes  to  a  symbolic  pic- 
ture of  the  action.  Through  the  extreme  simplicity  of  the 
decorations  and  costumes,  he  forces  the  whole  attention  of 
the  audience  upon  the  spoken  word.  Because  of  the  excellent 
training  in  clear  diction  which  he  gives  his  actors,  he  produces 
remarkable  effects  and  succeeds  in  winning  close  attention 


BERLIN  PEOPLE  AND   THEIR    THEATRE    71 

from  his  audience.  It  would  never  occur  to  a  Jessner  audience 
during  one  of  his  successful  performances  to  interrupt  the 
play  with  applause  before  the  final  curtain  drops.  At  times, 
to  be  sure,  his  expressionistic  theory  leads  him  too  far  and 
his  symbolism  appears  a  mere  caricature;  but  with  a  reverent 
audience  even  an  experiment  that  dares  too  much  will  succeed. 
Jessner's  simplicity  so  well  expresses  the  transition  from  court 
to  people's  theatre,  that  when  he  becomes  too  subtle  the 
audience  tends  to  blame  itself  rather  than  the  director.  The 
attitude  of  the  old  court  audience  that  still  persists  in  visiting 
the  theatre  also  enhances  Jessner's  popularity.  At  the  end 
of  a  new  interpretation  of  an  old  favorite  a  part  of  the  audience 
often  will  applaud  wildly,  while  the  smaller,  older  group  will 
hiss  and  raise  the  cry:  "We  want  our  old  stage!  "  That, 
too,  gives  the  people  a  new  sense  of  their  freedom. 

Examination  of  the  repertory  under  Jessner's  direction  does 
not  disclose  a  very  radical  change  from  the  days  of  the  court 
theatre.  The  difference  lies  rather  in  the  truer,  freer  spirit 
of  their  interpretation.  The  old  system  was  wise  enough  to 
play  the  nation's  classics.  It  was  more  through  the  distri- 
bution of  emphasis  that  it  undertook  to  carry  on  its  "  clever  " 
education.  Only  in  patronage  of  modern  authors  did  it  openly 
show  favoritism.  Like  most  German  directors  when  they  have 
arrived  at  the  head,  of  their  profession,  Jessner  delights  in 
winning  startling  effects  from  new  interpretations  of  Shake- 
speare. He  plays  Schiller  as  the  old  court  theatre  never  saw 
him,  opening  up  before  the  people  the  whole  fervor  of 
Schiller's  revolutionary  ardor  and  letting  the  pathos  of  his  ex- 
hortation to  national  restraint  make  its  irresistible  appeal.  He 
has  not  yet  had  time  to  introduce  his  own  ideas  of  Faust,  but 
of  the  nineteenth  century  classics,  particularly  those  of  Hebbel 
and  Kleist,  he  has  given  excellent  productions.  In  accordance 
with  the  common  German  taste,  his  favorite  modern  dramatists 
are  Hauptmann,  Wedekind,  Strindberg  and  Ibsen.  But  he 
disregards  the  early  work  of  Strindberg  and  concentrates  upon 
the  quiet,  thoughtful,  far  more  spiritual  later  dramas;  he 
drops  entirely  the  later  problem  plays  of  Ibsen  and  tries  to 


72  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

make  his  audience  intimate  with  the  soul  of  Brand  and  of 
Peer  Gynt  and  the  inner  conflict  of  Hakon  and  of  Skule. 
Among  the  youngest  dramatists  he  favors  those  who  approach 
nearest  his  own  interest  in  inner  spiritual  action.  He  expended 
much  effort,  while  I  had  the  opportunity  of  watching  him,  in 
attempts  to  rescue  Hans  Franck's  Godiva,  a  work  excellent 
in  parts  but  unequal.  But  Germany's  present  confusion  is 
not  producing  very  clear  dramatic  expressions,  and  Jessner  is 
at  least  alert  enough  not  to  be  caught  by  the  immature  pro- 
ductions of  the  new  expressionists,  who  turn  out  so-called 
"  spiritual  "  dramas  according  to  the  latest  demands  of  ex- 
pressionistic  theory,  but  do  not  create  a  deeper  vision  of  their 
life  or  of  the  life  of  the  nation. 

Jessner  also  has  closed  his  stage  to  those  old  favorites  of 
the  court  who  before  its  fall  lived  an  easy  life  by  lending  their 
talents  to  flattering  its  vanities.  If  Jessner  can  prevent  it, 
Sudermann  will  not  be  seen  upon  his  stage.  When  he  took 
control  he  refused  to  play  a  new  drama  of  Sudermann's,  the 
contract  for  which  he  had  inherited.  Sudermann,  however, 
went  to  court  and  won,  and  Jessner  had  to  bring  out  his  play. 
He  made  an  excellent  performance  of  it  and  took  in  good 
receipts  to  help  him  in  his  more  serious  experiments,  but  his 
attitude  clearly  gave  warning  that  Sudermann's  tribe  will  have 
to  seek  another  stage  than  the  one  which  is  devoted  to  giving 
the  people  expressions  of  themselves. 

The  old  court  opera  proved  too  expensive  an  institution  to 
popularize:  With  the  exception  of  Wagner's  music  drama 
the  opera  is  by  nature  a  decorative  appendage  of  the  court  and, 
in  spite  of  the  artistic  gems  contained  in  it,  its  expensive 
trappings  tend  to  estrange  the  people.  To  meet  the  excessive 
cost  of  the  opera  it  was  necessary  to  increase  considerably  the 
prices  of  admission.  For  economic  reasons  the  gaudy  settings 
of  the  old  regime  had  to  be  retained.  Arrangements  are  now 
being  considered,  however,  both  to  modernize  the  opera  in 
accordance  with  the  more  genuine  and  less  pretentious  taste 
of  the  time,  and  to  devise  means  by  which  the  people  may  be 
given  a  chance  to  hear  the  opera  at  popular  prices. 


BERLIN   PEOPLE  AND   THEIR    THEATRE    73 


But  Jessner,  with  all  his  reform  and  his  deep  sense  of  obli- 
gation to  the  people,  is  nevertheless  an  official  of  the  state. 
Though  it  is  a  revolutionary  state  and  representative  of  the 
will  of  the  people,  it  does  not  yet  command  their  faith.  There- 
fore, while  the  people  respect  Jessner  and  sit  reverently  before 
his  stage,  they  hesitate  to  accept  his  work  whole-heartedly. 
Their  hesitation  does  not  mean  a  lack  of  appreciation  for  the 
drama  but  rather  the  very  opposite.  They  see  in  the  great 
dramas  of  their  poets  so  intimate  an  expression  of  themselves, 
and  in  the  crisis  now  upon  them  they  are  so  intent  on  getting 
the  clearest  possible  insight  into  those  expressions,  that  they 
instinctively  and  often  vehemently  resent  anything  that  makes 
these  dramas  seem  more  distant.  That  is  why  they  turn  in 
such  anger  against  Reinhardt  and  why  Jessner  must  still  work 
without  their  full  confidence.  That  accounts  too  for  the 
marvelous  success  of  the  People's  Drama  League  of  Greater 
Berlin,  which  today  maintains  two  large  theatres  built  from 
the  people's  voluntary  contributions  and  which,  if  equipment 
permitted,  could  quickly  double  its  present  membership 
of  120,000. 

The  People's  Drama  League  is  an  organization  of  long 
standing.  Arising  from  the  conviction,  which  has  never  wholly 
been  lost  sight  of  among  the  German  people,  that  the  drama  is 
mainly  a  crystallized  and  solemn  expression  of  the  essential 
experience  common  to  the  people  as  a  whole,  it  has  had  from 
the  beginning  the  object  of  freeing  the  theatre  from  commer- 
cialism and  paternalism,  and  of  again  emphasizing  the  spiritual 
attitude  of  the  people  to  the  drama.  Its  idea  is  not,  nor  was 
it  ever,  merely  to  give  better  performances  than  were  pre- 
sented on  many  a  royal  stage,  where  toadying  often  went  for 
more  than  talent;  nor  does  it  principally  seek  chances  to  per- 
form those  plays  which  the  court  refused  through  fear  of 
their  revolutionary  spirit;  but  it  strives  to  rejuvenate  and  re- 
fresh the  stage  at  the  very  heart  of  it  by  a  thoroughly  new 
reunion  with  the  people  as  a  whole.     At  the  very  beginning  of 


74  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

the  movement  it  was  realized  that  the  means  of  reaching  such 
a  goal  must  be  those  most  natural  to  the  growth  of  the  stage, 
but  also  the  most  difficult:  a  reorganization  of  the  audience  so 
as  to  establish  an  intimate  relationship  between  it  and  the 
stage. 

With  the  rise  and  victory  of  the  new  naturalism  in  the 
eighties  of  the  last  century  a  revolutionary  spirit  took  strong 
hold  of  the  German  drama  under  the  leadership  of  the  great 
international  quartet:  Ibsen,  Tolstoy,  Dostoievski  and  Zola. 
The  government  exercised  a  ruthless  censorship  to  keep  the 
dangerous  spirit  off  the  stage;  but  with  the  founding  of  the 
Freie  Biihne  by  Otto  Brahm,  official  interference  was  avoided 
by  those,  at  least,  who  could  afford  to  belong  to  this  exclusive 
society  of  liberal  devotees  to  art.  With  the  rise  of  the  new 
drama  and  its  intense  interest  in  the  miseries  and  hardships  of 
the  lower  classes,  these  classes  began  to  grow  more  conscious  of 
themselves,  to  demand  a  greater  share  of  life,  and  to  organize 
for  political  action.  What  was  more  natural  than  that  the 
desire  should  arise,  on  the  one  hand  to  make  accessible  to  these 
masses  the  visions  of  their  struggle,  that  the  great  dramatists 
were  attempting  to  express,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  win  for 
the  dramas  the  audience  for  which  they  were  principally 
meant?  This  idea  was  set  in  motion  in  the  spring  of  1890  by 
Dr.  Bruno  Wille.  In  the  summer  of  that  year  at  a  large  mass 
meeting,  attended  by  the  interested  authors  and  some  two 
thousand  workers,  it  was  decided  to  form  a  society  which 
should  meet  monthly  at  some  large  theatre  to  attend  a  per- 
formance of  one  of  the  new  plays.  The  conditions  of  ad- 
mission were  arranged  so  that  even  the  poorest  could  be 
present.  At  the  first  performance  on  October  19,  1890,  The 
Pillars  of  Society  was  given.  Ibsen  remained  a  decided 
favorite  for  a  long  time.  The  only  older  German  plays  given 
were  Schiller's  revolutionary  dramas,  The  Robbers  and 
Love  and  Intrigue,  and  Hebbel's  Mary  Magdalene.  Of 
the  new  dramatists  Hauptmann  was  played  most,  then 
Anzengruber  and  occasionally  Halbe  and  Sudermann.  The 
organization    of    the    society    was    thoroughly    democratic 


BERLIN   PEOPLE  AND   THEIR   THEATRE    75 

except  that  the  director  and  his  advisory  council,  who  were 
chosen  by  the  society  in  convention,  were  given  absolute 
authority  in  artistic  matters.  All  seats  were  of  one  price, 
about  ten  cents,  and  were  distributed  by  lot  at  each  per- 
formance. 

The  spirit  of  the  audience  in  those  early  days  can  be  seen 
best  from  the  following  anecdote:  1  "  In  February  1891  Henrik 
Ibsen  attended  a  performance  of  the  Freie  Volksbiihtie  at 
the  Lessing  Theatre.  He  sat  between  Bebel  and  Bruno  Wille. 
Oskar  Blumenthal,  the  director  of  the  theatre,  told  us  of  the 
impression  made  upon  him  by  the  breathless  attention  and 
devotion  of  the  audience.  The  play  was  Sudermann's  Ehre. 
When  the  storm  of  applause  broke  over  the  house  after  the 
powerful  effect  of  the  final  scene,  the  taciturn  Ibsen,  full  of 
astonishment,  turned  to  his  companion  and  cried,  "  What  an 
audience!"  and  again,  "What  an  audience!" 

Because  the  movement  was  organized  as  a  private  society 
the  police  could  not  lawfully  apply  the  censorship.  An  injunc- 
tion proceeding  was,  however,  instituted  against  it  in  an  effort 
to  prove  it  a  political  society,  and  therefore  subject  to  control. 
In  court  it  established  the  fact  that  while  it  professed  social- 
istic principles,  these  were  not  political  but  principles  of  general 
conduct,  and  the  injunction  was  dropped.  The  old  Prussian 
paternalism  never  did  succeed  in  finding  a  way  of  subduing 
revolt  that  assumed  the  philosophical  form  of  a  Weltan- 
schauung.    Even  in  its  machinations  it  was  "  orderly." 

A  certain  amount  of  party  politics  has  always  exerted  some 
pressure  within  the  organization  to  its  real  detriment,  even 
though  at  the  very  start  the  principle  was  insisted  upon  that 
political  and  artistic  expressions  should  not  and  could  not  inter- 
fere with  each  other.  The  more  dogmatic  party  Socialists 
became  dissatisfied  with  the  repertory  selected  by  the  director 
and  his  council,  and  demanded  a  share  in  the  arrangements. 

1  Wesen  und  Weg  der  Berliner  Volksbiihnenbeivegung,  Berlin,  1920,  p.  6. 
This  is  a  collection  of  essays  on  the  work  of  the  Drama  League,  edited  by 
Julius  Bab,  one  of  the  foremost  dramatic  critics  of  Berlin  today,  to  whose 
liberal  help  and  inspiration  during  my  recent  trip  to  Germany  I  owe  very 
much. 


76  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

A  bitter  strife  ensued  with  the  result  that  in  October  1892 
Bruno  Wille  and  most  of  the  authors  interested  in  the  move- 
ment split  off  and  formed  the  Neue  Freie  Volksbiihne,  in 
which  freedom  of  artistic  standards  from  socialistic  influence 
was  insisted  upon  more  strongly  than  was  pleasing  to  the 
majority  of  the  older  society.  This  quarrel  became  very  in- 
tense. The  two  societies  felt  that  they  fundamentally  dis- 
agreed. In  actual  procedure  the  more  "political"  Freie 
Volksbiihne  soon  realized  that  harm  must  result  from  a  mix- 
ture of  motives,  and  that  art  and  politics  are  not  compatible. 
The  Neue  Freie  Volksbiihne,  on  the  other  hand,  could  not 
attain  its  main  object,  the  rearing  of  a  new  and  fresh  audience 
for  the  drama,  without  an  intimate  relationship  with  the 
people  and  the  great  labor  organizations.  So  it  happened 
that,  though  each  society  fought  its  fight  alone  for  two  dec- 
ades, they  could  finally  reunite  without  the  necessity  of  much 
compromise. 

The  Freie  Volksbiihne,  under  the  chairmanship  of  the 
liberal  Franz  Mehring,  who  was  widely  known  among  the 
workers  for  his  writings,  organized  along  far-reaching  demo- 
cratic lines.  Even  the  director,  and  the  advisory  council  for 
matters  pertaining  to  artistic  standards,  were  chosen  by  the 
society  at  large.  The  program  was  directed  primarily  toward 
making  good  drama  accessible  to  the  people  at  a  very  low 
admission,  and  developing  within  this  new  audience  a  thorough 
understanding  and  genuine  appreciation  of  the  drama.  The 
society  also  hoped,  through  the  pressure  such  an  audience 
would  exert,  to  bring  about  the  birth  of  a  new  modern  drama: 
a  drama  which,  in  a  real  sense,  would  mirror  the  new  life  that 
was  coming.  In  1895  it  had  a  membership  of  6,000.  The 
police  then  saw  their  chance  to  interfere.  They  maintained 
that  with  so  large  a  membership  the  society  could  so  longer 
claim  the  immunity  of  a  private  organization,  but  would  have 
to  be  considered  a  public  institution,  subject  to  censorship. 
Well  knowing  that  with  Prussian  censorship  in  control  its 
real  life  would  be  slowly  but  effectually  throttled,  the  society 
fought  hard  in  the  courts  to  maintain  its  character.    The  Neue 


BERLIN   PEOPLE  AND   THEIR   THEATRE    77 

Freie  Volksbiihne,  with  all  the  authority  of  its  many  well- 
known  writers,  came  to  the  aid  of  the  older  society.  Even  a 
large  part  of  the  press  helped  in  the  fight.  But  the  court 
decided  in  favor  of  the  government. 

Rather  than  submit,  however,  the  society  decided  to  dis- 
band. The  few  years  it  had  been  allowed  to  function  un- 
molested had  not  brought  to  realization  the  hope  that  many 
of  the  members  were  most  anxiously  and  impatiently  enter- 
taining. The  new  drama  which  was  to  be  the  expression  of 
the  inner  powers  of  a  new  class  failed  to  appear.  Hauptmann's 
Before  Sunrise  and  The  Weavers  had  raised  their  expectations 
high,  but  neither  the  work  of  Hauptmann  nor  the  German 
drama  in  general  developed  in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  the  goal 
nearer.  Where  it  was  best,  it  took  another  course  entirely; 
where  it  held  too  closely  to  the  course,  it  became  propaganda, 
losing  its  artistic  value  and  along  with  this  its  appeal  even 
to  an  audience  such  as  the  society  afforded.  For  though  these 
people  were  very  humble  and  untutored  they  were  unusually 
keen  to  sense  the  difference  between  the  real  and  the  affected, 
and  they  were  led  by  men  sincere  in  purpose  and  with  no  trace 
of  a  desire  to  use  their  popularity  with  the  people  for 
political  ends. 

Though  disbanded  and  though  disappointed  in  their  prin- 
cipal hope,  yet  they  persisted  in  their  desire  for  good  drama, 
especially  for  better  and  more  intimate  performances  of  the 
dramas  of  older  days.  After  two  years  they  reorganized  with 
a  constitution  carefully  prepared  to  make  it  hard  for  the  police 
to  interfere.  For  thirteen  years  the  work  went  on  unmolested. 
At  first  the  performances  were  given  on  Sunday  after- 
noons in  a  theatre  rented  for  the  purpose,  and  by  a  company 
of  interested  actors,  many  of  whom  were  among  the  best 
in  the  city  and  willing  to  give  their  services  free.  As  the 
society  grew  and  had  to  expand,  blocks  of  seats  were  rented 
for  its  members  at  the  regular  theatres  when  plays  were  given 
in  conformity  with  the  spirit  of  the  society.  But  as  the  neces- 
sity of  this  policy  grew  and  the  control  over  the  repertory 
decreased  the  society  strongly  desired  a  theatre  of  its  own, 


78  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

a  Kunstheim  for  the  workers  of  Berlin.  Plans  for  such  a 
theatre  were  made  and  a  goodly  fund  started  by  issuing  to 
members  building  bonds  of  five  dollars  each,  but  the  police 
again  interfered.  This  new  interference  is  hard  to  explain 
on  any  other  grounds  than  the  Prussian  system's  stupid 
jealousy  of  all  education  outside  of  its  own  omniscient 
tutelage. 

The  members  of  the  Freie  Volksbuhne  were  mostly  of  the 
class  of  skilled  workers  and  small  merchants.  Of  the  7,000 
members  in  1901  less  than  a  thousand  were  unskilled  workers. 
The  repertory  of  plays  from  the  time  of  reorganization  to  the 
outbreak  of  the  war  was  one  of  which  any  theatre  might  be 
proud.  Hauptmann  and  Ibsen  were  played  most,  followed  in 
the  order  of  the  number  of  performances,  by  Schnitzler,  Strind- 
berg,  Dreyer,  Goethe,  Shakespeare,  Hebbel,  Anzengruber, 
Shaw,  Schiller,  Lessing,  Grillparzer,  Moliere,  Bjornson, 
Heyjermans,  Sudermann,  Halbe,  Bahr,  Maeterlinck,  Fulda, 
Nestroy,  and  a  few  scattering  lesser  men.  Of  this  list  Dreyer 
alone  might  be  called  a  mediocre  propaganda  dramatist.  Shaw 
was  always  very  popular  on  the  German  stage,  not  so  much  for 
his  caustic  satire  upon  society  as  for  his  humor.  German 
dramatists  do  not  give  their  audience  much  chance  to  laugh. 
In  the  above  list  Bahr  alone  has  a  keen  talent  for  comedy, 
Fulda's  comedies  being  rather  heavily  sentimental.  The 
German  stage  frankly  depends  for  its  good  comedies  on 
Moliere,  Oscar  Wilde  and  Shaw. 

The  Prussian  police,  however,  paid  little  attention  to 
artistic  standards  or  to  justice.  The  famous,  much  decorated 
von  Jagow  was  Polizeiprasident  and  was  thoroughly  enjoying 
his  authority.  In  the  winter  of  191 0  he  issued  a  typical  ukase 
imposing  strict  censorship  upon  both  drama  leagues,  and  the 
German  courts  upheld  him  with  typical  servility,  though  almost 
the  whole  of  literary  Germany  vehemently  and  publicly  pro- 
tested. This  time,  however,  the  leagues  did  not  disband. 
They  submitted  to  Prussian  censorship  and  had  to  suffer  re- 
peated stupid  interference.  Conscious  of  their  strength  they 
fought  on  in  the  hope  that  their  point  of  view  would  ultimately 


BERLIN   PEOPLE  AND   THEIR   THEATRE    79 

triumph.  Persecution  again  brought  the  two  leagues  together 
and  thus  prepared  the  way  for  the  work  they  were  to  take  up 
with  the  outbreak  of  the  revolution. 


VI 

The  story  of  the  dissenting  league,  the  Neue  Freie 
Volksbuhne,  is  one  of  similar  struggle,  but  of  even  greater 
success.  It  started  with  a  healthier  foundation,  freer  from 
any  danger  of  mixing  politics  and  art.  It  differed  from  the 
older  league  in  that  it  determined  that  matters  of  artistic 
standards  should  be  left  wholly  to  competent  authorities  and 
not  be  subject  to  the  will  of  the  society  as  a  whole.  It  could 
thus  maintain  the  highest  standards  and  steer  directly  for  the 
purpose  both  leagues  professed  supreme:  that  of  rearing  from 
among  the  common  people  a  fresh,  receptive,  but  under- 
standing audience.  Among  its  members  it  counted  the  fore- 
most of  German  writers.  It  opened  its  program  in  November 
1892  with  an  excellent  Sunday  afternoon  performance  of 
Faust,  at  a  membership  admission  of  fifty  pfennigs.  It 
worried  the  police  by  giving  the  first  performance  of  Haupt- 
mann's  Weavers  while  this  play  was  still  forbidden  on  the 
public  stage,  and  produced  for  the  first  time  in  Germany  the 
equally  disturbing  play  by  Bjornson,  Beyond  our  Powers.  In 
1895  tne  police  succeeded  in  stopping  it  for  a  while,  the 
occasion  being  a  proposed  production  of  a  satire  on  the  clergy 
by  Anzengruber.  The  censor  interfered,  and  the  trial  that 
ensued  was  so  long  and  costly  that  it  exhausted  the  resources 
of  the  members  and  for  a  while  the  League  disbanded.  It 
soon  reorganized,  however,  with  a  constitution  assuring  greater 
immunity  from  persecution;  but  it  had  to  wage  a  long  and 
hard  up-hill  fight  for  nearly  fourteen  years. 

Its  alert  interest  in  the  forward  march  of  the  drama  enabled 
it  to  seize  upon  the  moment  when  a  natural  change  in  dra- 
matic expression  was  taking  root,  and  it  thus  profited  from  the 
momentum  of  new  and  sound  departure.  The  old  naturalism, 
which  had  given  birth  to  the  league  idea,  was  turning  into 


80  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

sensational  materialism  on  the  regular  stage,  and  in  the  leagues 
was  being  spoiled  by  too  strong  a  tendency  to  socialistic  propa- 
ganda. The  moment  called  for  the  healthy,  joyous  appeal 
to  the  senses,  without  which  no  drama  ever  can  exist  for  long. 
Reinhardt,  who  was  just  beginning  to  capture  the  imagination 
of  Germany,  saw  the  need  and  took  measures  to  meet  it.  He 
had  just  opened  his  first  large  theatre  in  Berlin,  and  with  an 
excellent  company,  gathered  together  with  his  unerring  instinct 
for  stage  talent,  he  played  a  repertory  of  Maeterlinck, 
Hofmannsthal  and  Wedekind.  The  Neue  Freie  Volksbiihne 
at  once  leased  every  Sunday  and  holiday  matinee  at  Reinhardt's 
theatre.  In  a  short  time  its  membership  increased  to  10,000, 
composed,  very  much  like  that  of  the  older  league,  of  small 
merchants  and  skilled  workers.  When  in  1905  Reinhardt  took 
over  the  famous  Deutsches  Theater,  the  League  followed  him. 
Owing  to  his  excellent  performances  the  League  grew  very 
quickly,  so  that  Reinhardt,  who  today  is  scorned  by  the  mem- 
bers of  the  League  and  suspected  of  commercialism,  is  in  a 
large  measure  responsible  for  its  existence. 

In  1907  the  League,  with  a  membership  of  19,000,  elabo- 
rately celebrated  its  fifteenth  anniversary  by  electing  to 
honary  membership  its  four  most  popular  champions,  Agnes 
Sorma,  Clara  Viebig,  Gerhart  Hauptmann  and  Richard  Strauss. 
In  1908  it  was  leasing  the  afternoon  performances  in  eleven 
theatres,  and  certain  evening  performances  at  the  Deutches 
Theater.  It  then  decided  that  in  order  to  perform  its  work 
properly,  in  order  to  give  its  members  the  repertory  it  believed 
to  be  best,  and  the  surroundings  it  thought  essential,  in  order  to 
develop  the  new  style  which  it  thought  the  spirit  of  the  League 
would  ultimately  create,  it  must  have  a  house  of  its  own.  The 
balance  of  10,000  marks  in  the  League's  treasury  was  converted 
into  a  building  fund.  With  each  ticket  was  sold  a  building 
fund  stamp  of  10  pfennigs.  Fifty  marks'  worth  of  stamps 
would  buy  a  certificate  which  bore  interest  at  five  per  cent. 
By  this  method  and  by  the  purchase  of  bonds  of  low  denomina- 
tion, 250,000  marks  were  contributed  by  1910.  Two  years 
later  the  membership  had  increased  to  nearly  50,000  and  the 


BERLIN  PEOPLE  AND   THEIR   THEATRE    81 

building  fund  to  650,000  marks.  The  police  repeatedly  tried  to 
interfere  with  the  growth  of  the  society  by  indiscriminate 
application  of  the  censorship,  but  on  each  occasion  vehement 
protests  were  made  throughout  the  country,  as  a  result  of  which 
the  League  gained  the  sort  of  wide  public  respect  of  which 
the  Prussian  system  has  always  stood  in  awe.  It  therefore 
now  assumed  a  friendly  attitude  to  the  League.  In  the  final 
plans  for  the  erection  of  a  theatre  the  city  came  to  the  League's 
aid.  Out  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  city  several  blocks  of 
dilapidated  and  disreputable  slums  had  just  been  razed.  This 
site  the  city  offered  to  the  League  at  a  very  reasonable  figure 
for  the  erection  of  its  house,  and  also  granted  to  it  a  loan  of 
2,000,000  marks  at  a  low  rate  of  interest. 

When  the  success  of  the  undertaking  was  thus  assured  and 
the  road  cleared  for  the  realization  of  its  project,  the  Neue 
Freie  Volksbuhne  approached  the  older  league.  It  proposed 
that  they  settle  their  differences  and  unite  into  one  large  league, 
so  as  to  proceed  the  more  surely  toward  the  common  goal: 
the  putting  of  art  at  the  disposal  of  the  people  and  the  opening 
of  their  minds  and  senses  to  an  even  greater  understanding 
and  appreciation.  There  still  threatened  a  bit  of  friction  be- 
cause of  socialistic  dogmatism  within  the  older  league,  but 
an  appeal  to  the  supremacy  of  art  succeeded  in  clearing  away 
all  obstacles.  Just  before  the  war  the  union  was  effected  and 
the  building  was  begun.  The  outbreak  of  the  war  produced 
a  strong  spirit  of  chauvinism  and  a  strong  assertion  of  the 
authority  of  the  state  against  popular  movements,  especially 
of  a  spiritual  kind.  But  though  delayed  in  its  work  the 
League  still  maintained  its  purpose.  On  December  20,  1914, 
the  new  theatre  was  dedicated.  It  had  cost  4,500,000  marks, 
more  than  half  of  which  was  represented  by  bonds  held  by 
14,500  individual  members  of  the  League,  mostly  workers. 
The  building  is  large,  seating  nearly  two  thousand,  stately  and 
even  rich,  but  without  a  trace  of  pretentiousness.  It  is 
equipped  with  the  latest  approved  stage  machinery,  revolving 
stage  and  other  mysterious  apparatus,  explained  to  my  igno- 
rance by  the  proud  head  mechanician  as  he  led  me  with  a 


82  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

proprietary  air  through  his  back-stage  labyrinth  of  intricate 
machines  and  chambers  of  horrors.  The  pride  and  joy  in  it 
evinced  by  even  the  scrubwomen  is  one  of  the  greatest  testi- 
monies to  the  spirit  that  has  made  its  building  possible.  The 
broad,  almost  semi-circular  auditorium  is  very  different  from 
the  usual  ostentatious  Berlin  theatre.  There  is  not  a  trace  of 
gilded  stucco  or  of  startling  plush.  All  the  woodwork  is  of 
rich  and  beautiful  mahogany,  with  quiet,  symbolic  carvings 
sparingly  distributed.  It  has  a  large  floor  space,  a  fairly 
deep  balcony,  two  narrow  galleries,  and  not  a  single  box.  It 
makes  a  comfortable,  dignified  auditorium,  clearly  showing 
that  the  builders  were  intent  upon  eliminating  so  far  as 
possible  all  difference  in  seating  preference,  and  upon  giving 
each  guest  the  comfort  necessary  to  enjoyment.  The 
entrance  lobby  and  the  refreshment  halls  and  promenades 
on  the  various  floors  are  planned  in  the  same  rich  and 
dignified  simplicity.  The  back  of  the  theatre  is  furnished 
with  the  numerous  offices  and  committee  rooms  necessary  for 
carrying  on  the  business  of  the  League.  The  building  with 
its  dignified  fagade  faces  a  large  square  in  the  most  congested 
center  of  humble  workers'  tenements.  From  over  the  six 
massive  pillars  of  its  curved  front  there  blazes  out  the  mes- 
sage: Die  Kunst  dem  Volke. 

The  drain  of  the  war,  however,  was  too  hard  upon  the 
League.  It  could  not  pay  for  the  upkeep  of  the  house  and 
support  the  heavy  expenses  of  its  own  company.  Reinhardt 
again  had  to  come  to  the  rescue.  In  return  for  a  free  use 
of  the  theatre,  he  proposed  to  play  there  with  his  company 
and  turn  over  half  the  seats  for  each  performance  to  the  League. 
In  that  way  the  crisis  was  bridged.  But  as  the  revolution 
approached,  the  people  became  more  intent  again  on  taking 
up  their  own  purpose  through  a  repertory  by  the  men  in  whom 
they  placed  their  faith.  In  September  191 8  the  League  again 
took  full  control  with  its  own  company,  in  charge  of  Friedrich 
Kayssler,  who  is  not  only  one  of  the  best  actors  in  Germany, 
but  a  critic  of  the  finest  discernment  and  high  standards  and 
an  ardent  advocate  of  the  idea  of  the  People's  League.    In  the 


BERLIN   PEOPLE  AND   THEIR   THEATRE    83 

public  announcement  of  his  appointment,  the  future  program 
of  the  League  was  formulated  thus : 

"  In  his  whole  character  Friedrich  Kayssler  manifests  that 
respect  for  his  fellowmen,  that  affection  for  the  great,  darkly 
struggling  mass  of  the  people,  without  which  our  principal 
coworker  cannot  be  imagined.  And  yet,  more  than  many  who 
are  in  the  midst  of  the  gay  clamor  of  the  so-called  '  great 
society,'  he  shows  that  proud,  independent,  defiant  and  re- 
served nobility,  without  which  no  real  artist  can  prosper.  From 
the  hands  of  such  men  the  People's  League  may  hope  to 
receive  that  which  it  most  needs. 

"  What  is  it  that  we  hope  and  expect?  Not  sensation. 
We  do  not  expect  extraordinary  innovations  or  dazzling  hits. 
We  expect  the  slow,  quiet,  firm  and  serious  development  of  a 
company  of  our  own,  with  our  own  purpose  in  view,  in  a  broad 
repertory  which  will  have  regard  for  all  the  values  of  great 
dramatic  literature.  Neither  in  respect  to  literature  nor  to 
acting  nor  to  stage  reform  do  we  want  the  predominance  of 
a  fad,  however  dazzling  or  popular  it  may  be;  but  we  do  expect 
new  adjustment  and  new  perfecting  of  all  the  means  of  the 
theatre  to  meet  the  special  character  of  the  most  varied  prob- 
lems which  the  prominent  poets  of  the  past  and  of  the  future 
will  set  before  us.  We  also  expect  that  the  most  recent 
German  drama  will  be  fostered,  but  without  any  of  the  haste 
which  seizes  upon  oddities  in  order  to  attract  attention  and 
get  the  better  of  a  competitor.  We  intend  to  take  a  risk 
for  the  sake  of  young  talent,  and  will  not  shun  further  risks 
after  a  first  failure;  but  above  all  things,  effort  and  time  must 
be  reserved  to  express  with  ever  new  devotion  and  to  offer 
with  greatest  clarity,  to  the  people  who  are  desirous  to  enjoy 
them,  the  great  dramatic  expressions  from  Aeschylus  to 
Hauptmann  and  from  Shakespeare  to  Strindberg." 

When  I  saw  the  League  in  action  in  the  fall  of  1920,  its 
influence,  power,  and  hold  upon  the  people  were  definitely 
fixed.  It  was  forced  to  limit  its  membership  to  120,000  rather 
than  to  make  new  appeals.     Because  large  numbers  were 

2  Wesen  und  Weg  der  Berliner  Volksbiilinenbewegung,  p.  22. 


84  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

clamoring  for  admission,  it  had  decided  at  the  beginning  of  the 
1920  season  to  increase  its  accommodations  by  allowing  each 
member  only  ten  peformances  a  year  instead  of  eleven.  This 
made  room  for  20,000  new  members.  At  nine  o'clock  on  the 
morning  of  August  nth  the  applications  were  received.  The 
line  about  the  theatre  had  formed  at  six,  and  at  nine  extended 
all  around  the  building  four  abreast.  By  noon  of  August  13th 
the  last  membership  ticket  had  been  issued  and  the  remaining 
crowds  had  to  be  refused.  According  to  the  statement  of  the 
officials  the  membership  would  be  quickly  doubled  if  there 
were  means  of  finding  proper  accommodations. 

Though  it  is  doing  so  reluctantly,  the  League  is  at  present 
forced  to  rent  large  blocks  of  seats  at  thirteen  theatres.  Its 
relations  with  Jessner  at  the  state  theatre  are  very  cordial  and 
intimate.  His  sympathy  with  the  movement  goes  to  the  ex- 
tent of  a  conviction  that  the  future  of  the  German  stage  de- 
pends principally  upon  the  organization  of  people's  drama 
leagues.  The  leaders  of  the  league  idea,  however,  are  con- 
vinced that  only  in  theatres  of  their  own  will  their  purpose 
have  a  chance  fully  to  mature.  They  have,  therefore,  decided 
upon  a  second  house.  They  have  leased  from  the  city  for  a 
term  of  twenty-five  years  the  large  Kroll  Opera  House,  which, 
in  anything  but  good  condition  before  the  war,  was  used  as 
a  hospital  during  that  period  and  is  now  in  very  bad  repair. 
The  terms  of  the  lease  require  of  the  Volksbiihne  that  it  con- 
vert the  old  building  into  a  dignified  people's  theatre  and  turn 
it  back  to  the  city  in  good  repair  at  the  expiration  of  the  lease. 
In  return,  the  city  assumes  the  burden  of  staging  there,  with 
the  companies  of  its  two  theatres,  performances  of  both  drama 
and  opera  in  repertories  approved  by  the  authorities  of  the 
League.  This  will  enable  the  society  to  accept  an  additional 
100,000  members,  and  also  to  supply  its  members  with  an 
opportunity  of  enjoying  opera,  the  want  of  which  has  long 
been  felt.  The  plans  for  the  remodelling  of  this  theatre  are 
already  complete.  It  will  have  a  seating  capacity  of  2150  and 
will  cost  approximately  twelve  million  marks.  The  plans  for 
selling  bonds  for  the  new  project  had  been  announced  only 


BERLIN   PEOPLE  AND   THEIR   THE.  IT  RE    85 

a  few  months  before  I  visited  the  society,  but  three  million 
marks  had  already  been  subscribed  in  denominations  varying 
from  twenty  to  one  thousand  marks.  I  was  at  the  offices  of 
the  theatre  on  the  evening  of  the  first  of  the  month,  and  saw 
these  workers  in  what  was  evidently  their  best  attire,  waiting 
in  long  lines  for  a  chance  to  make  their  regular  payments 
toward  the  loan.  It  was  a  quiet,  eager  throng,  in  pleasant 
contrast  to  the  shabby  gayety  that  crowds  about  the  cheaper 
movies  or  the  race-courses  of  Germany  today.  These  men, 
at  least,  are  soberly  and  intently  interested  in  becoming  ac- 
quainted with  those  values  which,  once  well  learned,  will  be 
a  great  help  in  dispelling  the  darkness  through  which  they 
now  stumble  along  the  paths  of  their  new  responsibilities. 

The  membership  of  the  League  is,  of  course,  not  limited  to 
any  one  class.  The  idea  of  creating  a  fresh  audience,  un- 
sophisticated and  receptive  to  simple  artistic  expression,  was 
paramount  in  the  minds  of  the  founders  and  has  persisted. 
One  of  the  primary  purposes  of  the  League  —  and  it  is  still  as 
strong  as  ever  —  was  the  desire  to  clarify  the  minds  and 
senses  of  the  workers;  but  a  strong  stand  is  taken  against 
introducing  any  political  propaganda,  or  fostering  any  so-called 
proletarian  art.  Because  of  this  stand  the  League  has  bitter 
enemies  who  deride  it  as  "  bourgeois "  propaganda.  The 
Independent  Socialists,  for  example,  rather  than  encourage 
their  members  to  join  the  League,  arrange  each  winter,  in 
Reinhardt's  circus  theatre,  a  series  of  "  festive  hours  for 
workers,"  at  which  some  excellent  things  are  done  but  also 
much  frank  political,  party  instruction  is  given.  The  Volks- 
biihne  is  happily  free  from  such  a  thing;  the  whole  question 
of  class  struggle  seems  lo  have  been  set  aside.  Membership 
fees  are  very  small,  and  theatre  admission  in  the  fall  of  1920 
was  only  two  and  a  half  marks  for  matinees  and  four  marks  for 
evening  performances,  with  the  mark  worth  less  than  two  cents. 
It  is  not  cheapness,  .however,  that  accounts  for  the  popularity 
the  League  enjoys  among  the  workers.  Their  interest  and  pride 
in  it,  the  jealousy  with  which  they  guard  its  purpose  is  far 
too  deep  for  that.     Besides,  the  motion  picture  theatres  are 


86  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

both  cheaper  and  infinitely  more  sensational.  The  low  ad- 
missions have  drawn  a  large  number  of  the  middle  class,  who 
find  that  they  cannot  afford  to  pay  the  regular  prices  at  the 
theatres,  and  flock  into  the  League,  not  because  they  believe 
in  or  are  particularly  interested  in  its  purpose,  but  to  satisfy 
their  cravings  for  good  drama.  The  coming  of  this  class  has 
made  no  perceptible  difference  in  the  society.  Moreover  the 
intermingling  of  the  classes  at  the  theatre,  the  absolute  equality 
of  persons  guaranteed  by  the  constitution  and  emphasized  by 
its  machinery,  tends  to  wipe  out  the  consciousness  of  class  dis- 
tinctions, while  the  quality  of  the  performances  inspires  all 
alike  with  the  dignity  of  the  endeavor. 

Each  member  is  assigned  ten  performances  a  season  which 
he  pledges  himself  actually  to  attend.  If  for  some  good 
reason  he  finds  it  impossible,  other  arrangements  will  be  made 
for  him.  But  the  society  has  no  provision  for  members  who 
wish  simply  to  give  their  moral  support  and  not  attend  the  plays 
in  person.  On  the  day  of  his  assigned  performance  the  member 
buys  his  ticket  of  admission  on  presentation  of  his  card  at  the 
nearest  of  the  many  substations  scattered  about  the  city.  With 
this  ticket  he  goes  to  the  theatre  and  from  one  of  the  large  urns 
in  the  entrance  lobby  draws  his  seat,  or  block  of  seats,  if  he 
is  with  his  family.  Where  he  sits  or  who  his  neighbor  will  be 
is  merely  a  matter  of  chance.  Partly  to  help  toward  paying 
the  expenses  of  the  house,  partly  to  avoid  the  danger  that  a 
constantly  assured  and  definitely  constituted  audience  may 
lower  the  standard  of  acting  or  dull  the  critical  sense  of  the 
manager,  about  a  fourth  of  the  seats,  scattered  throughout  the 
house,  are  sold  at  regular  box  office  prices,  ten  times  that  of 
the  membership  admission.  Thus  far  these  seats  have  always 
been  in  great  demand,  so  that  the  audience  is  thoroughly  repre- 
sentative and  there  is  very  rarely  a  vacant  seat  When  blocks 
of  seats  are  bought  for  members  at  other  theatres,  these  also 
are  selected  from  all  over  the  house,  except  that  they  include 
rrone  of  the  poorest  gallery  seats,  the  discomfort  of  which 
makes  impossible  a  full  appreciation  of  the  play. 

The  ushers,  called  Ordner  ("arrangers"),  form  an  impor- 


BERLIN   PEOPLE  AND   THEIR   THEATRE    87 

tant  group  within  the  organization.  They  are  members  who  vol- 
unteer to  usher,  collect  the  tickets,  supervise  the  allotment  of 
seats,  inspect  the  membership  cards,  and  do  whatever  other 
work  is  necessary  in  the  auditorium  or  lobbies  during  a  per- 
formance. Because  of  the  interest  they  manifest  by  thus  do- 
nating their  time,  and  because  of  their  constant  contact  with 
the  members,  they  act  as  intermediaries  between  the  bulk  of 
the  members  and  the  officers.  In  order  to  give  the  members  a 
better  chance  to  express  their  wishes,  as  well  as  better  to  reach 
each  member  with  an  explanation  of  the  purpose  of  the  League, 
the  larger  organization  is  divided  into  sections  of  about  4000 
each.  Each  section  meets  at  least  once  a  year  to  discuss  the 
work  of  the  League  and  to  choose  delegates  for  the  general 
convention,  half  of  whom  must  be  ushers. 

The  general  convention  elects  the  business  management  of 
the  League  and  half  of  the  advisory  council.  It  gives  instruc- 
tions to  the  business  management  and  passes  resolutions  in  the 
form  of  recommendations  to  the  advisory  council.  It  also  has 
the  power  of  confirming  the  choice  of  the  general  director  of 
the  theatre  on  recommendation  from  the  advisory  council 
and  the  business  management. 

The  advisory  council  consists  of  nine  men  chosen  by  the 
general  convention  and  of  an  equal  number,  experts  in  the 
drama  and  the  theatre,  designated  by  the  business  manage- 
ment. This  body,  together  with  the  officers  of  the  League, 
determines  the  repertory  and  has  general  charge  of  the  artistic 
standards.  A  thorough  and  free  discussion  of  these  standards 
is  invited  and  encouraged  in  the  League  at  large.  But  the 
final  determination  and  the  responsibility  for  it  lies  with  the 
advisory  council,  so  as  to  safeguard  the  principal  aim  of  the 
society:  the  education  of  the  audience.  The  means  to  the 
realization  of  this  aim  is  the  introduction  of  a  better  repertory, 
presented  with  the  greatest  truth,  simplicity,  and  artistic 
setting,  in  order  to  create  the  most  intimate  relation  between 
the  audience  and  the  vision  of  the  artist  on  the  stage.  Far 
from  fostering  a  proletarian  drama  the  council  rather  bends  its 
efforts  to  so  organizing  the  repertory  that  in  the  course,  not  of 


88  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

a  season,  but  of  years,  a  synthetic  picture  of  the  drama  will  be 
constructed.     While  they  profess   to   favor  a   revolutionary 
program  in  the  present  crisis,  they  explained  to  me  that  they 
considered  any  drama  revolutionary,  old  or  new,  if  it  gives  the 
people  a  better  insight  into  themselves  and  the  forces  of  society, 
and  starts  them  upon  a  clearer  onward  path.     At  the  same 
time  it  is  decidedly  the  tendency  of  the  League  to  encourage 
modern  playwrights,   both   in  order  to  give  young  authors 
every  possible  chance  to  see  their  plays  produced,  and  to  test 
before  an  audience  which  is  fresh,  but  for  that  very  reason 
quick  to  resent  adulteration,  attempts  at  crystallizing  the  new 
spirit.    Before  they  are  accepted,  however,  these  modern  plays 
must  show  real  qualities  of  art.    There  was  some  stir  among 
the  members,  to  be  sure,  when  the  advisory  council  refused  to 
stage  the  revolutionary  drama  by  Kurt  Eisner,  which  was 
found  among  the  effects  of  this  most  popular  martyr  of  the 
revolution  after  his  assassination.    The  wishes  of  the  members 
were  denied  because,  in  the  estimation  of  the  council,  this 
drama  contained  no  real  artistic  qualities.    During  the  season 
of  1 91 9  to  1920  the  modern  plays  presented  at  the  League's 
theatre  were:  '5  Jungferngijt,  by  Anzengruber,  who  has  re- 
mained a  favorite  with  the  people  since  the  early  days  of 
naturalism;  Kaiser's  Gas,  a  terrible  picture  of  society  as  it  de- 
generates into  a  machine,  and  Die  Burger  von  Kalais;  The 
Love  Potion,  by  Wedekind;   and  Predigt  von  Littauen,  by 
Lauckner.     Of  the  German  classics  Goethe's  Gbtz  von  Ber- 
lichingen,  Schiller's  Wilhelm  Tell,  Hebbel's  Gyges  und  Sein 
Ring,  and  Kleist's  Das  Kdtchen  von  Heilbronn  were  given,  as 
well  as  three  farces  by  minor  playwrights.     Of  non-German 
dramas   the   League   presented    Shakespeare's    Measure   for 
Measure,  Calderon's  The  Judge  of  Zalamea,  Bjornson's  Paul 
Lange  and  Zora  Parsberg,  and  of  Strindberg  Luther  and  the 
first  part  of  Toward  Damascus.    This  repertory  is  certainly 
not  over-revolutionary. 

But  more  than  the  repertory,  the  attitude  of  the  audience 
and  the  quality  of  the  acting  made  this  theatre  distinctive  as  an 
institution.     All  the  actors  are  professionals  and  several  of 


BERLIN   PEOPLE  AND   THEIR    THEATRE    89 

them  of  high  repute  in  Germany.  Their  close  cooperation, 
and  the  atmosphere  of  religious  intensity  or  of  popular  humor 
that  they  are  able  to  create  upon  the  stage,  shows  how 
thoroughly  their  leader,  Friedrich  Kayssler,  has  imbued  them 
with  his  faith  in  the  importance  of  the  work.  At  times  this 
attitude  is  decidedly  overdone,  especially  when  the  actors  are 
tugged  too  hard  by  the  heavy  German  sentimentalism  to  which 
this  audience  seems  more  subject  than  the  old  more  sophisti- 
cated one. 

For  the  programs  at  the  theatre  one  of  the  advisory  council, 
or  more  often  Kayssler  himself,  prepares  a  short  essay  in  order 
to  acquaint  the  members  with  the  author  and  the  play,  its  part 
in  the  history  of  the  drama,  and  the  particular  interpretation 
which  the  company  has  put  upon  it.  Some  of  Kayssler's  very 
best  work  lies  in  these  essays.  He  never  condescends  in  them, 
as  though  he  were  instructing  men  of  lower  intelligence.  The 
essays  are  simple,  scholarly  talks  setting  forth  his  personal 
attitude  to  the  author  and  to  the  play  concerned. 

The  work  of  the  League  is  not  wholly  confined  to  the  drama. 
For  those  who  care  to  attend,  lectures  are  arranged  through- 
out the  season,  dealing  especially  with  the  history  and  under- 
lying principles  of  the  drama.  In  addition  a  series  of  readings 
from  modern  lyrics,  an  elaborate  and  excellent  concert  program 
under  the  supervision  of  Leo  Kestenberg,  even  expeditions 
through  the  museums  of  Berlin  for  a  glimpse  of  other  arts,  are 
all  provided. 

The  most  genuine  enthusiasm  and  serious  purpose  is,  how- 
ever, concentrated  upon  the  drama.  By  applying  themselves 
to  it,  the  people  seek  to  enter  into  the  mystery  of  the  relation 
of  art  to  life.  That  it  is  one  of  closest  intimacy  is  a  conviction 
which  has  been  the  very  life  of  German  drama.  Now  that 
this  new  theatre  has  made  the  best  of  drama  accessible  to  the 
people  the  conception  of  its  relation  to  their  lives  is  taking 
strong  hold  upon  them,  so  that  they  are  not  only  assuming  a 
more  intelligent  attitude  toward  the  drama  but  are  demanding 
closer  contact  with  it.  Some  of  the  more  enthusiastic  leaders 
of    the    movement,    seeing    the    rapid    improvement    of    the 


9o  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

audience,  were  anxious  to  go  a  long  step  forward,  and  started 
an  agitation  for  the  complete  communizing  of  the  theatre. 
They  proposed,  somewhat  on  the  theory  of  the  League  that 
the  cities  be  divided  into  theatre  communes,  to  which  each 
person  in  the  specified  district  would  belong  upon  pledging 
himself  to  attend  performances.  The  city  was  to  requisition 
the  existing  playhouses  and  allot  them  to  the  communes.  The 
repertory  and  its  execution  were  to  be  determined  by  the 
delegates  of  the  communes,  and  the  expenses  defrayed  from 
the  taxes  of  the  city.  Nothing  expresses  more  clearly  the 
quality  of  the  League's  work  and  the  effect  of  that  work 
upon  the  members,  than  the  sober  reaction  to  proposals  such 
as  these.  They  refused  to  run  the  risk  of  political  interference 
with  their  purpose  or  of  bureaucratization.  They  expect  the 
city  to  express  a  sympathetic  attitude  by  lightening  the  finan- 
cial burdens  of  the  League,  and  by  freeing  them  from  the  impo- 
sition of  the  taxes  to  which  commercial  theatres  are  subject; 
but  they  desire  no  political  interference.  They  believe  that 
their  present  organization  practically  solves  the  question  of  the 
socialization  of  the  theatre.  They  are  convinced  that  they  will 
be  able  to  provide  additional  houses  without  outside  help  as 
more  and  more  of  the  people  clamor  for  admission,  and  they 
are  very  proud  of  the  progress  they  have  made  in  eliminating 
not  merely  commercialism  but  all  sense  of  class  distinction. 


VII 


In  October  1920  a  long  sought  purpose  of  the  General  Secre- 
tary of  the  Volksbiihne,  Dr.  Nestriepke,  was  realized  at  a 
national  conference  of  similar  societies  throughout  Germany, 
which  he  had  succeeded  in  calling  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Berlin  society.  At  this  meeting  the  "  Union  of  German  Drama 
Leagues"  was  organized  by  representatives  of  some  thirty 
cities  of  North  and  Central  Germany.  The  absence  of  repre- 
sentatives from  South  Germany  was  felt  with  more  grief  than 
resentment  since  they  realized  the  reactionary  spirit  which 
controlled  the  government  of  the  South  to  the  exclusion  of 


BERLIN   PEOPLE  AND   THEIR   THEATRE    91 

successful  popular  movements  in  those  places.  Even  in 
Southern  Germany,  where,  in  spite  of  official  opposition,  such 
movements  had  established  themselves,  the  regional  mistrust 
of  Prussia  would  still  make  cooperation  difficult. 

I  attended  the  meetings  at  which  the  new  Union  was  organ- 
ized and  on  many  points  I  found  a  spirit  of  perfect  agreement. 
In  the  main  the  Union  is  to  be  an  organization  for  mutual 
assistance  in  the  development  of  the  league  idea  by  encourag- 
ing an  exchange  of  views  between  the  various  leagues,  by  ad- 
vising and  aiding  the  members  thereof,  by  public  propaganda 
for  its  principles,  by  defending  the  interests  of  the  societies 
within  the  Union  against  the  courts  and  public  officials,  and  by 
furthering  all  undertakings  which  aim  to  put  art  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  people  in  theatres  of  their  own.  Membership 
in  the  Union  is  to  be  granted  to  those  societies  whose  purpose 
is  "  to  make  available  to  their  members,  at  the  lowest  possible 
uniform  prices  of  admission  and  without  profit,  dramatic  per- 
formances of  high  artistic  standard  by  professional  actors," 
and  to  organize  themselves  on  the  principle  of  the  "  self-deter- 
mination of  their  members."  Thus  far  there  was  very  little 
discussion.  The  term  "  self-determination  of  members " 
seemed  to  delight  the  meeting,  but  no  one  undertook  to  discuss 
its  exact  meaning.  On  the  next  point,  however,  there  ensued 
a  very  lively  fight.  It  was  finally  decided  that  all  societies 
seeking  admission  to  the  Union  must  "  acknowledge  the  prin- 
ciple of  political  and  religious  neutrality  and  under  all  condi- 
tions refuse  to  put  themselves  in  opposition  to  the  socialist 
movement."  During  the  discussions  arising  out  of  this  formu- 
lation, the  old  political  quarrel  which  had  once  disrupted  the 
work  at  Berlin  and  finally  been  successfully  allayed,  came  to 
the  fore  and  dangerously  threatened  for  a  while.  It  probably 
will  grumble  underneath  for  a  long  time  to  come  and  take  much 
tactful  handling.  The  delegates  from  the  more  radical  centers, 
especially  of  Saxony,  openly  fought  for  the  idea  that  the 
Union  must  be  a  powerful  instrument  for  socialistic,  political 
propaganda.  But  the  men  of  Berlin,  particularly  the  keen 
dramatic  critic,  Julius  Bab,  forced  them  into  a  discussion  of 


92  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

the  nature  of  artistic  standards  and  the  impossibility  of  a  re- 
lation between  art  and  propaganda,  political  or  any  other  kind ; 
and  they  had  to  retreat  with  what  grace  they  could.  For  a 
time  these  radicals  maintained  that  they  should  not  be  able 
to  induce  their  societies  to  join  under  the  circumstances;  but 
the  large  majority  replied  to  this  threat  with  dignified  regret 
and  with  a  new  insistence  upon  artistic  standards.  They  were 
ready,  however,  to  emphasize  their  principle  by  stating  that 
they  also  refused  to  have  their  work  serve  for  anti-socialistic 
propaganda. 

Wherever  the  Union  appears  it  has  to  contend  with  much 
opposition  from  the  reactionary  elements.  In  the  Rhine 
provinces  and  in  South  Germany,  where  reaction  is  in  the  con- 
trol of  the  Catholic  Center,  religious  and  political  opposition 
unite  to  impede  its  work.  The  delegates  from  Cologne,  for 
example,  contended  that  they  should  not  be  able  to  join  the 
Union  if  in  its  constitution  it  insisted  upon  political  and  religious 
neutrality,  because  the  authorities  of  Cologne  would  arbitrarily 
refuse  them  a  theatre  license.  They  were  advised  to  join  in 
spite  of  this  and  to  take  up  the  fight,  if  need  be,  in  the  assur- 
ance that  the  Union  would  help  them  win  their  rights. 

This  religious  and  reactionary  opposition  generally  takes  on 
a  more  subtle  and  interesting  form  than  such  crude  political 
interference.  After  the  establishment  of  the  Volksbuhne  a 
society  was  incorporated  in  Frankfurt  on  the  Main  by  wealthy, 
ardent  Catholic  reactionaries,  who  set  up  in  every  center  of  the 
Rhine  Provinces,  where  the  Volksbuhne  meets  with  success,  a 
counter  Buhnenvolksbund.  This  offers  the  people  a  chance  to 
enjoy  dramatic  performances  under  conditions  similar  to  those 
of  the  Union,  but  rarely  of  as  high  a  quality,  and  with  the  set 
purpose  of  educating  the  audience  "  in  the  spirit  of  popular 
German  culture  and  in  a  Christian  view  of  life."  The  work 
they  do  is  often  very  good,  but  they  spoil  it  by  their  propaganda 
against  all  plays  whose  authors  they  can  convict  of  socialistic 
or  even  of  liberal  leanings.  In  one  interesting  instance,  in  the 
City  of  Miinster  in  Westphalia,  the  Volksbuhne  and  the 
Buhnenvolksbund  both  run  very  good  theatres  and  even  coop- 


BERLIN   PEOPLE  AND   THEIR   THEATRE     93 

erate  extensively.  They  seem  to  accept  the  situation  that  the 
devoutly  Catholic  population  cannot  attend  performances  of 
the  regular  League  in  an  unprejudiced  spirit,  and  that  the  artis- 
tic reaction  of  this  group  is  therefore  purest  in  its  own  theatres. 

In  a  similar  way,  the  more  radical  elements  of  the  Berlin 
League,  who  are  sincerely  and  passionately  striving  to  know 
the  meaning  of  the  revolution,  to  see  the  nature  of  its  new 
ethics  and  the  new  human  powers  which  are  developing 
through  it,  are  exerting  pressure  upon  the  officials  to  offer 
greater  opportunities  for  the  plays  of  young  revolutionary 
poets.  Arrangements  have  been  made  to  rent  some  small 
theatre  occasionally  during  the  season  of  1921-1922  in  order  to 
stage  such  of  these  plays  as  the  advisory  council  deems  of  suffi- 
cient artistic  excellence.  But  because  neither  the  style  nor 
the  subject  matter  of  such  plays  is  intelligible  or  sympathetic 
to  the  average  member,  they  will  not  be  included  in  the  reper- 
tory and  admission  to  them  will  require  a  special  fee,  so  as  to 
draw  only  those  interested. 

I  watched  the  spirit  and  the  work  of  the  League  in  Berlin 
at  every  possible  chance.  In  the  main  the  members  are 
simple  folk,  a  bit  too  serious  perhaps;  but  the  times  are  more 
serious  still.  While  the  majority  of  the  workers  are  seeking 
stupefying  enjoyment  and  excitement,  these  people  are  calmly 
intent  on  watching  the  expressions  of  great  artists,  to  see  if 
through  these  they  may  learn  to  know  themselves  better  and  to 
get  hold  of  some  stable  force  in  the  bewildering  confusion. 
Moreover,  many  of  their  fellow  members  are  of  the  cultured 
middle  classes,  who  seek  through  the  advantages  of  the  League 
to  maintain  that  contact  with  art  which  they  can  no  longer  find 
at  the  regular  theatres,  controlled  by  the  profiteer  with  his 
money  and  his  insistence  upon  cheap  stimulants.  So  the 
workers  and  the  cultured  middle  class  are  learning  to  know 
and  appreciate  each  other  to  their  mutual  advantage. 

When  I  spoke  of  the  League  to  my  friend,  the  former 
Professor  of  Philosophy  at  Heidelberg,  hidden  away  in  the 
small  village  by  the  Starnberger  Lake  so  as  not  to  be  caught  in 
the  present  shams  and  confusions  of  his  country,  he  shook 


94  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

his  head  at  my  faith  in  its  work.  "  The  greatest  cant  in 
Germany  today  is  '  the  people.'  They  do  not  go  to  the  theatre 
for  the  reasons  you  infer.  They  go  because  formerly  it  was 
the  privilege  of  their  superiors,  and  now  they  take  the  chance 
to  '  decorate '  themselves  with  art."  But  that,  I  know,  is  not 
the  case  with  those  audiences  of  the  League  which  I  watched 
at  Berlin.  There  was  no  affectation  in  their  attitude,  but  calm 
concentration  upon  a  new  purpose.  Their  influence  will  not 
appear  at  once;  but  I  feel  convinced  that  with  the  members 
of  the  Workmen's  Educational  Association  they  will  do  more 
than  any  other  group  to  bring  the  country  gradually  back  to 
health. 


V 

WEIMAR 


WEIMAR  is  a  natural  objective  for  a  student  of 
literature  who  travels  through  Germany  today  in 
search  of  some  indication  of  a  spirit  within  the 
people  which  may  lead  them  out  of  their  turmoil.  Weimar 
is  but  a  very  small  city.  The  inhabitants  are  dulled,  both 
because  their  trade  has  too  long  been  simply  to  cater  to  visit- 
ing sight-seers,  and  because  the  artificial  political  organization 
of  a  petty  but  proud  principality  has  weighed  too  heavily  upon 
them,  especially  in  recent  decades.  It  is,  nevertheless,  the 
center  from  which,  only  a  little  over  a  century  ago,  the  power 
of  German  liberal  idealism  so  radiated  over  all  of  Germany 
that  its  force  still  persists  in  spite  of  every  obstacle. 

The  men  of  Weimar,  to  be  sure,  were  not  the  pioneers  who 
first  fixed  upon,  clarified,  and  developed  the  idealism  of 
eighteenth-century  Germany.  That  credit  belongs  above  all 
others  to  Kant.  Kant  possessed  the  keen  critical  sense  with 
which  to  clear  of  inconsistencies  and  irrelevancies  the  path 
toward  idealism.  He  had  the  lofty  ethical  fervor  which  en- 
abled him  to  sense  accurately  the  native  German  force  and 
thus  give  his  idealism  a  real  foundation.  Still  he  could  not 
make  this  idealism  the  ruling  power  within  the  life  of  the 
people,  for  his  metaphysics,  his  visions,  and  his  language  were 
not  the  kind  to  establish  contact  with  their  thoughts  and  long- 
ings. Before  the  principles  of  Kant  could  enter  actively  into 
German  life,  they  had  to  be  expounded  by  a  great  teacher  who, 
from  a  point  of  view  intimately  related  to  the  people,  could 

95 


96  GERMANY  IN  TRAVAIL 

explain  the  nature  of  these  principles  in  terms  that  everybody 
could  understand.    That  teacher  was  Herder. 

Weimar  was  the  home  not  only  of  Herder  but  also  of 
Herder's  greatest  pupils,  Goethe  and  Schiller.  These  two  com- 
pleted the  expression  of  the  idealism  of  Kant  as  taught  by 
Herder.  Goethe  fused  the  idealism  with  the  basic  forces  in 
the  nation's  life  in  visions  so  clear  that  they  became  a  mirror 
in  which  Germany  need  only  look  to  be  reminded  of  itself. 
Schiller  took  the  deeper  longings  and  hopes  of  the  people  and 
clarified  and  strengthened  them  by  means  of  this  same  idealism, 
and  then,  in  his  great  popular  dramas,  gave  back  these  native 
impulses  renewed  and  full  of  life.  Thus  to  the  people  Kant 
is  a  very  great  but  very  distant  metaphysician,  Herder  is  a 
teacher  to  be  highly  revered,  but  Goethe  and  Schiller  are  the 
poets  and  seers  of  that  which  is  highest  and  most  fundamental. 
They  are  the  ideals  of  the  people  personified.  They  are  the 
people's  national  legend.  To  the  people  Weimar  and  Goethe 
and  Schiller  are  one.  Thus  Weimar  itself  has  become  the 
legend  containing  for  the  people  that  which  is  eternal  in  them- 
selves; this  legend  they  intimately  search  for  guidance  when- 
ever the  conviction  is  forced  upon  them  that  their  life  needs  a 
real  renewal. 

Never  since  Weimar's  classical  days  has  Germany  seen  such 
a  dangerous  time  as  it  is  living  through  today.  Even  as  it 
gropes  back  to  Weimar,  its  touch  is  not  steady  or  altogether 
honest.  Germany's  confusion  is  so  dark  that  in  its  greatest 
distress  there  are  many  who  are  even  willing  to  use  its  clearest 
force  to  further  selfish  ends. 

When  the  National  Constituent  Assembly  sought  a  place  in 
which  to  meet  for  the  framing  of  the  republic's  constitution,  it 
fixed  upon  Weimar,  ostensibly  because  the  new  republic  had 
been  born  in  a  democratic  spirit  based  upon  the  Weimar  ideals 
of  freedom  and  humanity,  and  because  the  new  laws  were  to  be 
an  expression  of  that  idealism.  The  German  revolution,  how- 
ever, though  it  will  surely  lead  the  country  back  to  Weimar  as 
it  clears,  was  simply  a  revolt  against  unbearable  conditions; 
the  natural  reaction  to  an  unsuccessful  war  which  a  powerful 


WEIMAR  97 

propaganda  had  made  appear  the  people's  war  and  which  the  V 
people  had  to  wage  under  a  general  draft.  The  large  demo- 
cratic vote  in  the  elections  to  the  Constituent  Assembly  was 
not  so  much  an  expression  of  conviction  as  a  desire  to  mollify 
the  victors  by  a  show  of  change  of  heart.  Weimar  was  chosen 
for  the  meeting  because  police  protection  could  easily  be 
arranged  there  against  the  threatened  interference  from 
reactionaries  and  radicals,  and  because  Weimar  might  favor- 
ably impress  the  statesmen  of  the  Entente.  This  was  ex- 
plained to  me  by  delegates  to  the  Convention  who  were  most 
sincere  in  their  hope  that  the  real  Weimar  might  revive  and 
who  were  bitterly  disappointed  by  the  spirit  that  took  hold  of 
the  nation  when  the  victors  were  not  easily  misled  into  a  full 
acceptance  of  the  German  change  of  heart.  Yet  such  men  as 
these  delegates  retain  their  faith  in  the  ultimate  power  of 
Weimar  to  heal  and  gradually  to  lead  the  nation  to  a  genuine 
recovery,  for  they  know  that  this  force  is  fundamental  in  the 
nation's  life  and  that  once  set  in  motion  it  will  slowly  but 
surely  work  upon  the  national  mind.  So  the  choice  of  Weimar 
was  partly  for  the  effect  it  might  have  upon  the  outside  world, 
yet  it  was  also  a  direct  appeal  to  the  true  liberalizing  idealism 
of  Weimar  against  the  distortions  of  it  by  the  old  system,  and 
therefore  it  set  this  idealism  freer  than  it  had  been.  Now  the 
question  is  how  to  make  it  still  freer.  In  the  larger  cities  the 
people's  drama  leagues  and  some  of  the  better  new  city  theatres 
are  doing  important  work  in  fostering  Weimar's  spirit.  But 
if  the  Weimar  legend,  with  the  mysterious  power  that  a 
national  legend  has  in  the  shaping  of  lives,  is  to  take  real  hold 
upon  the  people,  Weimar  itself  must  be  intimately  connected 
with  the  work  in  order  to  stimulate  the  people's  memory 


ii 

At  the  time  when  the  Constituent  Assembly  met  in  Weimar 
the  general  director  of  Goethe's  theatre  was  the  neo-classical 
dramatist  Ernst  Hardt.  He  is  thoroughly  alive  to  the  oppor- 
tunity and,  as  he  sees  it,  the  obligation  confronting  him:  to 


1 


98  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

restore  the  Weimar  theatre  to  the  position  Goethe  and  Schiller 
had  once  conceived  for  it  as  the  national  stage  on  which  to 
keep  the  expressions  of  the  national  art  and  ideals  before  the 
eyes  and  minds  of  the  people  of  the  whole  country.    In  these 
plans   Goethe  was  clearly  conscious  of   setting  Weimar  in 
opposition  to  the  ideas  of  the  new  national  center  in  Berlin, 
whose  political  and  material  ambitions  he  mistrusted;    and 
Schiller  repeatedly  refused  a  call  to  the  theatre  at  Berlin  be- 
cause he  feared  that  in  the  Prussian  capital  the  idealistic 
motives  would  soon  be  buried  under  theatrical  pomp.     But 
within  the  last  half  century,  the  Weimar  theatre  had  degener- 
ated simply  into  a  royal  stage  whose  directors  were  subservient 
to  the  whims  of  the  ruling  prince  under  the  dominance  of 
Prussian  politics.    The  revolution  swept  away  the  many  petty 
princes  of  Thuringia  and  welded  it  into  a  single  republic, 
again  conscious  of  the  cultural  gifts  this  little  romantic  patch 
of  German  woods  had  bestowed  upon  the  country  in  former 
crises.    It  put  Ernst  Hardt  in  charge  of  the  theatre  at  Weimar, 
not  only  because  he  is  a  dramatist  of  note  and  had  shown  him- 
self a  fearless  liberal  in  times  of  stress,  but  because  among  the 
modern  poets  he  is  one  of  the  best  authorities  on  German 
classical  literature,  and,  in  the  estimate  of  men  like  the  Goethe 
expert,  George  Witkowski  of  Leipzig,  one  of  the  very  best  pro- 
ducers and  interpreters  of  the  dramas  of  Goethe  and  Schiller. 
In  order  that  his  intentions  might  immediately  be  estab- 
lished before  the  country,  Ernst  Hardt  sought  and  received 
from  the  provisional  government  at  Berlin  permission  to  des- 
ignate the  Weimar  theatre  "  The  German  National  Theatre." 
Thus  he  tried  to  direct  the  eyes  of  the  nation  once  again  upon 
the  need  for  a  rebirth  of  its  culture  in  a  return  to  Weimar.    On 
the  evening  of  the  6th  of  February,  191 9,  the  first  day  of  the 
deliberations  of  the  Constituent  Assembly,  the  delegates  met 
for  a  performance  at  the  theatre.    As  a  curtain  raiser  was  given 
a  prologue,  The  Fountain,  composed  by  Hardt  himself.    It  is  a 
simple  picture  of  Weimar  longing  for  the  return  of  its  people. 
In  a  corner  of  the  Weimar  park  between  a  bust  of  Goethe  and  a 
similar  one  of  Schiller  bubbles  a  fountain.     On  the  base  of 


WEIMAR  99 

the  fountain  a  youth  in  Greek  garments  lies  asleep.  For  a 
hundred  years  he  has  been  guarding  the  fountain  and  has 
helped  many  an  eager  pilgrim  to  a  refreshing  drink.  But 
wearied  by  the  protracted  loneliness  of  many  recent  years,  he 
has  fallen  asleep.  Heavy,  shuffling  steps  arouse  him  from 
his  slumbers  and  there  approach  a  haggard  woman,  dressed 
in  deep  mourning  and  exhausted  with  grief,  and  her  only  re- 
maining son,  a  wounded  soldier,  insane  with  anger  at  himself 
and  every  other  man  and  thing,  capable  only  of  degraded 
appetites  and  lusts.  But  the  touch  of  the  youth  quiets  the 
ravings,  and  he  leads  his  soldier-brother  to  the  fountain  to 
drink;  then  he  speaks  in  simple  admonition: 

"  Come,  let  me  take  your  sick  hand, 

My  brother!     Do  not  rave  and  grieve  yourself; 

Raise  up  your  head  and  think  upon  your  worth. 

I've  guarded  here  these  hundred  years  and  more 

This  fountain.     O  my  brother,  if  you  had 

But  dipped  from  it  these  fatal  hundred  years 

You  would  not  stand  before  me  as  you  are. 

For  here  there  rises  clear  from  virgin  soil 

The  clearest  fount  of  human  hopefulness 

Which  other  people  ever  praised  in  you. 

Bend  down  and  drink,  for  here  you  can  grow  sound. 

Come,  mother,  leave  your  son  here  at  the  fount 

To  look  upon  himself  in  solitude. 

Upon  his  head  unseen  there  gently  rest 

The  greatest  German  poets'  loving  hands 

And  bless  him  as  he  bravely  looks  afresh 

Upon  his  life.     Come  now,  and  I  will  dip 

This  cloth  far  down  into  the  fount  and  cool, 

While  he  collects  himself,  your  eyes  for  you; 

Your  poor,  dear  eyes,  which  tears  have  bitten  sore." 

Then  followed  a  performance  of  Schiller's  Wilhelm  Tell,  on 
which  Hardt  had  worked  a  long  time  to  make  it  express  as 
clearly  as  possible  Schiller's  vision  of  that  spirit  of  freedom 


) 


ioo  GERMANY  IN  TRAVAIL 

to  which  the  German  people  should  aspire.  On  the  23rd  of 
March,  1848,  a  performance  of  Tell  at  the  Berlin  Opera  had 
fired  the  people  to  a  deeper  understanding  of  that  revolution 
and  had  helped  to  crystallize  the  popular  purpose.  Hardt 
may  have  expected  a  similar  effect,  but  while  the  reception  of 
the  play  was  hearty,  he  nevertheless  feels  that  it  was  not  spon- 
taneous nor  wholly  genuine.  It  taught  him,  so  he  says,  that  the 
spirit  of  Weimar  is  as  yet  none  too  well  received  in  Germany. 
But  for  that  very  reason  there  is  all  the  greater  need  of  express- 
ing it  more  clearly  and  more  frequently.  Soon  after  this  per- 
formance Hardt  appeared  before  the  Convention  to  plead  with 
it  for  moral  and  financial  support  of  his  undertaking.  Instead 
of  granting  him  the  500,000  marks  a  year  which  he  requested 
as  a  subsidy  from  the  national  government,  it  gave  100,000 
marks  for  a  period  of  three  years,  together  with  a  goodly  sup- 
ply of  praise.  However,  the  new  Republic  of  Thuringia  has 
greater  faith  in  the  German  National  Theatre  and  grants  a 
yearly  subsidy  of  1,500,000  marks.  In  the  season  of  1919- 
1920  the  box  office  receipts  amounted  to  1,700,000  marks. 
But  the  purchasing  value  of  a  mark  is  not  very  high  in 
Germany  today  and  the  cost  of  running  a  theatre  has  increased 
greatly.  Hardt  found  himself  at  the  end  of  the  year  with  a 
deficit  of  1,500,000  marks.  So  far  he  has  been  able  in  one 
way  or  another  to  cover  this  deficit.  He  feels  he  must  persist 
until  the  country  realizes  that  it  cannot  build  up  a  new  national 
life  before  it  clarifies  the  fundamental  national  culture  con- 
tained in  its  heritage  at  Weimar.  The  difficulties  of  his  task 
have  made  him  perhaps  more  pessimistic  than  the  conditions 
of  the  country  warrant;  yet  his  views  are  not  much  darker 
than  those  of  many  another  German  who  has  a  real  desire  for 
the  return  of  the  best  German  culture. 

Hardt  understands  very  clearly  how  the  Prussian  system 
was  more  and  more  impoverishing  German  spiritual  life  by 
building  up  its  own  complicated  machine,  how  it  forced  the 
people  to  concentrate  their  efforts  upon  keeping  this  machine 
in  a  condition  of  highest  efficiency,  and  how  at  last  the  people 
neglected  the  spiritual  things  and  built  up  standards  based  on 


WEIMAR  101 

material  benefits  alone.  However,  there  was  always  some 
leisure  as  well  as  some  protesting  idealism  which  could  turn 
its  energies  upon  the  finer  spiritual  culture  of  the  nation  and 
keep  it  from  being  wholly  lost  for  want  of  attention.  But  he 
thinks  that,  as  the  extent  of  the  defeat  becomes  more  evident, 
the  spiritual  reserves  of  the  country  will  become  more  im- 
poverished. And  because  the  nation  must  put  forth  every 
ounce  of  strength  in  work  to  pay  its  bills,  its  leisure  will  be  lost 
and  its  physical  powers  will  be  taxed  to  such  an  extent  that 
it  will  have  no  reserve  to  expend  upon  the  fostering  of  the 
finer  values  of  life,  and  its  idealists  will  become  mere  pessi- 
mists. Yet  Hardt  and  most  of  the  finer  grained  men  with 
whom  I  spoke  know  that  the  regeneration  of  Germany  can- 
not be  effected  merely  or  even  principally  through  work,  for 
such  a  regeneration  would  mean  that  the  purely  materialistic 
standards  of  pre-war  days  would  ultimately  rise  again;  they 
know  that  above  all  else  the  spiritual  standards  must  be 
renewed. 

In  the  conditions  that  exist  or  threaten  today  Hardt  sees  a 
dangerous  analogy  to  the  days  following  the  Thirty  Years' 
War.  In  those  days  Germany  became  so  impoverished  and 
spiritually  so  exhausted  that  its  cultural  powers  almost  dis- 
appeared and  even  its  language  lost  the  power  of  expression. 
For  a  century  the  art  of  the  country  consisted  merely  of  the 
slavish  importation  and  awkward  imitation  of  foreign  art  to 
the  neglect  of  any  vivid  recollection  of  its  own  culture.  Only 
when  it  freed  itself  from  imitation  and  turned  again  to  its  own 
culture,  rousing  it  from  the  stupor  into  which  it  had  fallen 
through  exhaustion,  and  strengthening  it  with  that  foreign  art, 
Greek  and  English,  which  was  in  essence  most  related  to  it, 
did  German  art  begin  to  live  again. 

It  is  that  sort  of  extreme  exhaustion  which  Hardt  would 
like  to  spare  the  country  in  its  present  crisis.  He  realizes  the 
importance  of  the  movements  that  the  workers  have  begun 
in  order  to  know  and  foster  the  cultural  values  that  the  older 
cultured  classes  in  their  misery  and  confusion  are  neglecting. 
At  the  same  time  he  firmly  and,  I  believe,  rightly  insists  that 


102  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

no  such  movement  can  succeed  unless  the  Weimar  legend  is 
kept  as  pure  and  strong  as  possible,  for  that  legend  contains 
the  greater  part  of  the  country's  most  intimate  and  native 
spiritual  treasures.  Without  the  help  of  the  Weimar  legend 
the  country  would  be  like  a  man  who,  because  of  a  recent  un- 
fortunate experience,  undertook  to  wipe  out  the  memory  of 
his  entire  life  and  start  anew.  Innumerable  surprises  and 
distorted  judgments  would  make  his  progress  very  difficult, 
and  he  would  be  without  a  clear  direction  until  he  learned  to 
know  himself  on  the  basis  of  the  health  that  was  in  him.  To 
the  German  people  the  Weimar  legend  represents  this  basis; 
at  least,  attention  to  it  releases  within  the  mind  of  the  people  a 
search  for  fundamental  native  ideals,  whatever  their  expression 
may  be  from  time  to  time.  With  this  in  mind  Hardt  is  going 
about  his  work  at  the  German  National  Theatre  at  Weimar. 
He  not  only  wants  to  give  as  good  productions  of  the  German 
classics  as  his  resources  will  allow,  but  in  the  atmosphere  of 
Weimar  and  its  standards  he  wants  to  play  especially  the 
newest  dramas  as  a  test  of  their  relation  to  the  essentials  of 
German  life  contained  in  the  Weimar  heritage. 


in 

Hardt's  task  is  difficult.  He  has  to  labor  against  the  greatest 
German  weakness,  extreme  sentimentality,  which  in  the  con- 
fusion of  the  country  tends  more  than  ever  to  vitiate  all  serious 
endeavors.  When  I  was  in  Weimar  in  the  autumn  of  1920 
the  city  was  again  filled  with  German  travelers  who  had 
ostensibly  come  on  the  regular  pilgrimage  to  their  national 
Mecca.  I  met  them  everywhere,  in  the  homes  of  Goethe, 
Schiller,  Herder  and  Liszt,  and  in  the  little  garden  house  of 
Goethe,  and  on  the  paths  through  the  delightful  park  of 
Tiefurt.  I  listened  to  their  remarks  and  watched  them  closely 
to  see  whether  their  disaster  had  brought  them  nearer  to  the 
spirit  of  the  men  whose  former  homes  and  haunts  they  had 
sought  out.  But  they  were  the  stupidly  sentimental  museum 
crowds  of  former  years,  whose  loud  affectations  showed  their 


WEIMAR  103 

lack  of  real  contact  with  the  spirit  that  gives  these  places 
meaning.  And  yet  Weimar  was  the  one  city  I  found  in 
Germany  that  was  still  making  a  free  display  of  the  new  re- 
public's colors,  black,  red,  and  gold,  as  though  to  symbolize 
the  service  of  its  spirit  to  the  new  state.  But  the  crowds 
seemed  worried  by  them,  while  many  openly  mocked  them. 
I  visited  the  palace  of  the  former  princes  of  Weimar,  one  of  the 
most  inspiring  in  Germany,  furnished  in  a  taste  that  bears 
witness  to  the  influence  that  the  intellectual  giants  of 
Germany  once  had  upon  the  princes  of  this  little  realm.  As 
the  guide  led  us  from  room  to  room  he  explained,  to  the 
visible  horror  of  the  crowd,  that  during  the  Constituent 
Assembly  the  people's  delegates  had  been  lodged  there.  But 
when  he  went  on  to  say  that  all  the  furniture  had  been  care- 
fully stored  away  and  cots  put  in  instead,  they  were  somewhat 
relieved.  It  is  a  strangely  sentimental  crowd  that  will  stand 
in  pious  admiration  in  the  bedchamber  of  a  former  prince,  be- 
coming indignant  at  what  seems  to  them  desecration  of  that 
chamber  by  their  delegates,  and  yet  will  react  immediately  to 
an  order  for  a  general  strike  if  some  such  prince  should  try 
to  oust  these  delegates  from  their  appointed  work.  It  is  just 
such  sentimentalism  that  makes  the  work  of  Hardt  so  difficult. 
But  to  be  effective  Hardt  must  seek  for  the  broadest  possible 
hearing.  His  work  is  not  the  kind  that  can  afford  to  make  its 
appeal  principally  to  the  great  drama  leagues  throughout  the 
country  or  to  the  more  liberal  of  the  new  city  and  state  theatres, 
however  important  it  may  be  for  them.  He  has  the  thankless 
task  of  trying  to  insist  upon  the  clarification  of  a  national 
legend  within  the  whole  people.  He  must  clear  it  as  well  of 
the  sentimentalizing  of  the  exhausted  masses  of  the  middle 
class,  who  think  they  guard  it  in  weeping  for  it,  as  of  the  dis- 
tortions of  it  which  disappointed  reactionaries,  who  still  con- 
sider themselves  its  sole  legitimate  interpreters,  would  still  like 
to  effect.  He  must  again  bring  it  to  the  attention  of  that 
large  mass  of  people  which,  as  the  result  of  the  passions  of 
war,  has  lost  all  sense  of  things  except  as  these  help  toward  the 
crudest  physical  benefits.    Even  by  the  best  elements  of  the 


104  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

people's  drama  leagues  his  work  will  not  be  greatly  appreci- 
ated, though  its  actual  effect  may  be  far-reaching.  It  will 
always  seem  to  this  class  an  attempt  to  educate  them  from 
above,  and  therefore  far  less  important  than  the  work  which 
they  feel  they  are  initiating  themselves.  There  are  indications 
that  they  look  with  some  suspicion  upon  the  Weimar  venture 
for  that  reason.  They  are  not  yet  liberal  enough  to  distinguish 
between  that  which  is  inherently  theirs  and  that  which  they 
call  theirs  because  they  have  a  visible  control  of  it. 

Hardt  has  also  to  contend  with  many  physical  difficulties. 
The  expense  budget  rose  to  alarming  figures  because  of  the 
decline  of  the  mark  and  the  enormous  increase  in  the  cost  of 
living,  and  because  of  the  ease  with  which  the  employees  of 
the  theatre,  from  star  to  scrub-woman,  together  with  all  other 
German  workers,  won  their  demands  for  high  salaries.  For- 
merly the  ruling  prince  not  only  paid  liberal  subsidies  to 
the  theatre  from  his  private  purse,  but  also  succeeded  in  satis- 
fying the  actors  with  ridiculous  salaries  by  flattering  them  with 
his  favor  and  his  decorations.  One  of  the  less  attractive 
results  of  Germany's  turn  to  democracy  is  that  the  power  of 
money  has  supplanted  the  power  of  royal  favor.  And  yet 
when  the  German  National  Theatre  was  in  serious  financial 
straits  after  the  revolution,  the  employees  expressed  their  faith 
in  its  work  by  limiting  their  demands  to  the  minimum  on  which 
they  could  subsist.  In  the  matter  of  properties  Hardt  must 
resort  to  interesting  subtleties  of  economy.  Because  of  the 
prohibitive  price  of  canvas  his  scene  painter  must  content  him- 
self with  paper.  To  lessen  further  the  cost  of  equipment 
Hardt  compresses  the  stage  to  the  smallest  possible  dimensions 
that  the  action  will  bear,  and  seeks  to  attain  his  scenic  effects 
through  simple,  suggestive  arrangements,  without  being  a 
devotee  of  the  extreme  expressionistic  stage  reform.  While 
his  simplicity  does  often  attain  remarkable  effects  and  be- 
comes strikingly  expressive,  it  is  purely  a  result  of  necessity; 
but  for  that  very  reason  it  is  in  closer  contact  with  the  spirit 
of  the  times.  The  property  room  of  the  National  Theatre  is 
a  rich  storehouse  of  properties  accumulated  since  the  days  of 


WEIMAR  IOS 

Goethe's  management,  but,  because  of  the  additional  expense 
involved,  many  of  them  cannot  be  used  today.  While  these 
enforced  economies  demand  a  keen  inventiveness  and  much 
time,  they  are  leading  to  a  natural  reform  of  the  stage  in  close 
relation  to  the  best  of  the  new  democratic  spirit,  and  in  pleas- 
ant contrast  to  the  former  tinsel. 

In  another  kind  of  enforced  thrift  Hardt  is  less  fortunate. 
To  bring  his  work  before  the  country  with  proper  force  he 
should  have  at  his  theatre  some  of  the  best  talent  in  the  coun- 
try. But  lack  of  money  and  insufficient  faith  in  the  importance 
of  his  undertaking  make  that  impossible.  He  must  therefore 
content  himself  with  the  company  which  he  inherited  from  the 
old  regime.  I  saw  a  performance  of  Goethe's  Faust  on  which 
Hardt  had  expended  much  effort.  The  quiet  simplicity  of  his 
arrangement  of  the  scenes  served  to  project  the  action  clearly. 
The  distribution  of  emphasis  among  the  various  parts  showed 
the  producer's  deep  understanding  of  the  play.  But  Faust 
himself  was  played  by  an  old  favorite  of  the  former  court  who 
declaimed  his  part  with  the  bombastic  sentimentalism  that  he 
had  hurled  across  that  stage  for  twenty-five  years.  He  did 
not  have  the  least  conception  of  the  character  he  was  repre- 
senting. Gretchen  also  was  was  not  of  the  best,  but  she  showed 
evidences  of  being  susceptible  to  training.  The  principal 
actors  are  evidently  not  good  enough  to  do  Hardt's  work  as  it 
must  be  done,  but  he  is  not  yet  in  a  position  to  make  the 
necessary  changes. 

TV 

Meanwhile  Hardt  is  advancing  his  idea  by  sheer  persistency 
and  hard  work.  In  the  spring  of  192 1  he  finally  succeeded, 
after  two  years  of  urging,  in  inducing  the  city  of  Jena  to  give 
up  the  idea  of  supporting  a  theatre  of  its  own  and  to  entrust 
the  Weimar  theatre  with  supplying  it  with  dramatic  produc- 
tions. The  greatest  benefit  in  that  step  lies  in .  the  new- 
audiences  he  thus  acquires,  composed  of  the  students  of  the 
University  of  Jena  and  the  workers  of  one  of  the  largest 
factories  of  Germany.    The  new  Republic  of  Thuringia  cele- 


106  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

brated  at  Weimar  from  the  19th  to  the  25th  of  June,  192 1,  a 
festive  week  devoted  to  the  drama.    The  whole  of  July  was 
given  over  to  "  festival  plays  "  for  the  German  Schiller  League. 
During  that  month  high  school  students  from  all  parts  of 
Germany  made  expeditions  to  Weimar  to  visit  the  national 
shrines  and  to  attend  performances  at  the  German  National 
Theatre  of  Goethe's  Tasso,  Schiller's  Love  and  Intrigue  and 
Lessing's  Minna  von  Barnhelm.    In  spite  of  difficulties,  Hardt 
is  thus  succeeding  in  helping  to  keep  alive  the  Weimar  legend. 
Hardt  is  very  intent  upon  his  purpose.    When  I  interviewed 
him  to  hear  the  details  of  his  undertakings,  he  began  immedi- 
ately to  outline  a  bold  and  interesting  scheme  long  in  his  mind. 
He  questioned  me  at  length  on  the  attitude  of  German-Ameri- 
cans to  the  new  German  republic.    I  could  not  help  thinking 
how  much  almost  all  of  them  were  doing  to  help  relieve  the 
physical  sufferings  of  such  relatives  and  friends  as  they  knew 
to  be  in  need,  and  how  little  they  know  or  care  about  the  fight 
for  a  new  spirit  which  is  slowly  and  laboriously  being  waged 
in  Germany.    I  gave  him  what  little  encouragement  I  could. 
"  If  there  are  any  who  were  honest  in  their  fight  against  old 
Germany,"  he  said,  "  then  they  ought  now  to  help  us  keep 
the  better  spirit  from  being  lost  in  the  confusions  of  the  day." 
Their  minds  and  their  knowledge  of  Germany,  he  thought, 
ought  to  be  clear  enough  to  see  the  need  of  emphasis  on  the 
Weimar  legend  in  the  struggle  for  regeneration,  and  they  ought 
to  come  liberally  to  its  support.    He  plans  at  an  opportune 
time  to  address  to  them  in  behalf  of  the  Republic  of  Thuringia, 
a  request  to  establish  an  endowment  for  the  German  National 
Theatre  at  Weimar  as  an  expression  of  their  faith  in  the  new 
democracy  as  opposed  to  the  old  system  which  they  helped 
to  defeat.     Personally  I  should  like  very  much  to  see  Hardt 
succeed,  for  such  support  would  make  the  German-Americans 
themselves  more  sane  and  would  free  them  of  the  sentimental- 
ities resulting  from  war's  vexations.    But  he  will  have  a  hard 
time  of  it.     Like  other  courageous  and  honest  idealists  in 
Germany  today,  he  will  have  to  grit  his  teeth  and  hold  to  his 
purpose  until  more  favorable  conditions  prevail. 


WEIMAR  107 


A  visit  to  Leipzig  on  leaving  Weimar  convinced  me  of  the 
importance  of  Hardt's  work  more  than  anything  he  had  said 
or  shown.  Leipzig  is  a  rich  commercial  city  and  always  has 
had  good  theatres,  which  it  maintained  from  public  moneys. 
Today  it  is  supposed  to  be  one  of  the  most  radical  cities  in  the 
country,  with  the  people  strongly  in  control;  yet  its  theatres 
are  doing  less  for  the  people  than  those  of  any  other  large  city 
I  visited.  The  opera  keeps  up  its  standard  as  of  old,  but 
prices  are  so  high  that  only  the  rich  can  go.  The  theatre  for 
the  drama  is  also  too  expensive  for  people  of  average  income, 
and  its  repertory  is  confused  and  rather  sensational.  Since 
the  revolution  the  city  has  acquired  a  third  theatre,  which 
produces  new  comic  operas  of  questionable  merit,  and  which 
has  adjoining  wine  restaurants  and  dancing  halls. 

The  moderate  Socialists  have  organized  a  drama  league  in 
Leipzig  which  boasted  of  a  membership  of  25,000  and  played 
in  a  heavily  mortgaged  house  of  its  own.  But  the  repertory 
was  stupid  and  extreme.  The  management  seemed  to  be  in 
the  hands  of  a  typical  "  parlor  bolshevist,"  who  appeared  to  be 
devoted  to  all  the  latest  "  isms  "  and  anxious  to  educate  the 
people  through  "  revolutionary  art."  I  saw  a  play  there  by  an 
obscure  Russian;  it  was  called  The  Secret  Corners  of  the  Soul, 
and  the  principal  characters  were  "  Reason  "  "  Feeling  "  and 
"  The  Immortal  Subconsciousness."  The  manager  flattered 
himself  that  he  thoroughly  understood  it  all,  but  I  doubt 
whether  the  actors  knew  what  they  were  saying.  The  audience, 
simple  working  folk,  seemed  dumbfounded,  bored  and  dis- 
gusted, but  lacked  the  courage  to  admit  that  this  was  not  food 
that  they  were  willing  or  able  to  digest. 

Another  theatre  of  very  much  better  quality  was  first  united 
with  the  drama  league,  but  differences  arose  and  it  is  now 
trying  to  organize  a  dramatic  society  of  its  own  in  order  to 
insure  a  steady  patronage.  In  spite  of  its  better  program  it 
is  not  likely  to  maintain  itself  without  help  from  the  city. 


io8  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

The  city,  however,  is  jealous  of  such  ventures  and  instead 
of  aiding  quarrels  with  them. 

Dissent  and  strife  seem  to  have  hold  of  this  most  radical 
people's  city,  even  in  its  relation  to  art.  Closer  contact  with 
the  Weimar  spirit  and  a  refreshing  in  their  minds  of  the 
Weimar  legend  might  help  it  to  a  steadier  course. 


T 


VI 
THE   MIND   OF    BAVARIA 


HE  GERMAN  Revolution,  which  seems  to  have  been 
a  greater  surprise  to  the  Germans  themselves  than  to 
the  other  nations  who  were  anxiously  awaiting  its 
approach,  at  first  wrought  havoc  with  the  mind  of  the  Bavarian. 
He  is  a  stolid,  slow-moving  fellow,  gruff  on  the  surface,  though 
of  kinder  and  gentler  heart  than  the  stern  Northerner.  He 
loves  his  comfort  and  hates  to  leave  accustomed  ways  of  life. 
When  he  is  forced  to  do  so,  his  confusion  and  anger  are  apt  to 
lead  him  to  excesses,  until  he  tires  and  slips  back  to  his  old 
habits.  So  in  the  early  days  of  the  revolution,  Munich  was  the 
scene  of  two  most  extreme  and  violent  attempts  at  setting  up  a 
communistic  state;  yet  today  it  shows  fewer  revolutionary 
changes  than  any  other  part  of  Germany.  Its  government  is 
comfortably  reactionary.  A  few  extreme  radicals  of  the 
idealistic  type  have  seats  in  it,  but  they  are  kindly  tolerated, 
flattered  with  insignificant  concessions  and  neglected.  It  is  the 
center  of  the  armed  force  of  German  reaction,  the  Orgesch, 
the  irregular  military  organization  of  Herr  Escherich,  which 
caused  such  difficulty  to  the  national  government  in  its  attempts 
to  carry  out  the  disarmament  terms  of  the  treaty.  Every 
evening  I  met  large  numbers  on  their  way  to  drill  at  the  various 
headquarters,  openly  carrying  rifles  over  their  shoulders.  In 
Munich  the  police  are  as  numerous  as  before  the  revolution 
and  they  still  wear  the  old  royal  uniforms.  Neither  the  old  nor 
the  new  German  flag  is  much  in  evidence,  but  when  there  is  a 
display,  the  Bavarian  colors  appear,  and  occasionally  even 
those  of  the  House  of  VVittelsbach. 

109 


no  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

The  revolution  seems  to  have  made  the  Bavarian  more  anti- 
Prussian  than  he  was  before  the  war.  Now  that  he  is  again 
able  to  have  some  degree  of  peace,  now  that  his  beer  reminds 
him  somewhat  of  the  good  old  days,  and  his  father  confessor 
is  again  willing  to  comfort  him  as  to  the  ultimate  fate  of  his 
soul,  he  puts  the  responsibility  for  the  late  upsets  upon  the 
foreigner,  the  Prussian.  He  doesn't  even  care  to  see  the 
Prussian  visit  Munich,  lest  he  stir  up  more  trouble  or  eat  too 
much  of  the  Bavarian  food  and  raise  the  price  of  it  again. 
When  I  was  there,  it  was  at  least  as  difficult  for  a  Prussian 
to  visit  Munich  as  it  was  for  me.  Like  all  foreigners,  he  had 
to  have  police  permission  to  enter  the  city,  he  had  to  report 
at  headquarters  within  twenty-four  hours  of  his  arrival,  the 
time  of  his  stay  was  strictly  limited  and  his  actions  were  care- 
fully controlled. 

Bavaria  wields  a  weighty  club  over  North  Germany.  It  is 
the  farmland  of  the  country.  Conscious  of  the  advantage 
this  gives,  it  continually  threatens  to  secede  if  the  North  should 
try  to  force  upon  it  federal  regulations  which  to  its  slow 
reactionary  mind  appear  too  violent  a  change.  Secession 
would  undoubtedly  ruin  both  the  North  and  South;  but  Bavaria 
is  retrospective,  and  therefore  ignorant  of  the  results  that  such 
a  move  would  cause.  Meanwhile  the  new  republic  is  established 
because  events  brought  it  to  pass  and  swept  the  people  into 
it;  now  that  it  is  orderly  they  accept  it,  just  as  they  would 
accept  their  king  again,  if  he  returned  without  too  much 
commotion.  In  ordinary  conversation,  the  people  of  Munich 
were  speaking  of  the  former  ruler  as  their  king  with  the  same 
quiet  affection  as  before  the  war,  not  because  they  particularly 
wanted  him  back  but  because  the  stolid  farmer-citizen  doesn't 
like  to  be  uprooted  and  is  consequently  very  slow  about  chang- 
ing his  vocabulary.  These  people  are  the  least  political  of  all 
Germany.  The  old  reactionary  leaders,  therefore,  had  only 
to  bide  their  time  to  assume  slowly  and  unobtrusively  their 
old  command.  For  though  the  revolution  forced  out  the  king, 
it  did  not  seriously  disturb  the  real  rulers  of  Munich  and  there- 
fore of  Bavaria:  the  Hojbrau  and  the  church. 


THE   MIND  OF   BAVARIA  m 

ii 

Even  the  artistic  life  of  Munich  today,  especially  its  theatres, 
is  curiously  under  the  domination  of  these  powers.  But  this 
gruff  and  gentle  capital  is  justly  proud  of  its  art  and  any 
pressure  upon  it  by  the  authorities  therefore  must  be  applied 
carefully  and  subtly. 

The  People's  Drama  League  of  Munich  is  a  flourishing 
organization,  in  most  essential  details  similar  to  that  of  Berlin, 
but  even  freer  from  all  disturbing  threats  of  inner  political 
strife.  Though  it  was  originally  founded  by  members  of  the 
Majority  Socialist  Party,  more  than  half  of  its  35,000  mem- 
bers today  are  of  the  middle  classes.  Most  of  the  officers  of 
the  society  are  moderate  Socialists,  liberal  minded,  free  from 
reactionary  prejudices  and  determined  that  no  political  con- 
siderations shall  influence  the  work  of  the  League.  The 
monthly  publication  of  the  League,  intended  principally  to  give 
its  members  a  deeper  understanding  of  the  season's  repertory, 
is  ranked  among  the  better  literary  publications  of  Germany. 
A  striking  exception  to  the  general  character  of  the  member- 
ship is  furnished  by  the  editor,  a  young  Bavarian  author, 
Richard  Scheid,  who  is  an  ardent  Independent  Socialist,  former 
Minister  of  War  in  Eisner's  government,  and  editor  of  the 
radical  paper  Der  Kampj.  But  he  carefully  keeps  party 
politics  out  of  the  magazine,  which  is,  moreover,  the  weapon 
by  which  the  League  protects  itself  from  the  political  inter- 
ference periodically  attempted  by  the  authorities  of  the  city. 
On  the  occasion  of  one  such  attempt  the  editor  stated  the 
policy  of  the  League  thus:  "  Whenever  the  stage,  as  at  present, 
is  in  danger  of  becoming  the  arena  for  confused  political  pas- 
sions, we  will  strike;  but  our  blows  are  meant  only  for  this 
abuse  which  thinking  people  of  all  parties  will  condemn,  not 
for  the  parties  or  political  convictions  themselves. 

"  Let  us  rejoice  that  in  the  present  wretched  self-mutila- 
tions of  our  people,  there  exists  at  least  one  field  of  life  which 
is  still  free  from  party  passions.  All  of  us  will  do  our  part, 
whatever  position  we  otherwise  may  take,  if  we  look  upon  the 


ii2  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

stage  as  a  serious  element  of  life,  love  it,  and  seek  to  under- 
stand its  premises  and  conditions.  The  pleasure  we  take  in 
the  theatre  signifies  in  no  wise  a  shallow,  superficial  desire  for 
enjoyment.  It  is  the  expression  of  a  very  deep  need,  which 
strives  for  the  discovery,  discipline  and  development  of  per- 
sonality in  the  presence  of  the  poetic  symbols  of  life. 

"  That  which  is  offered  as  the  best  of  art  in  no  manner 
offends  the  moral,  religious  or  political  convictions  that  we 
may  entertain  outside  the  theatre.  He  who  is  so  miserably 
sluggish  that  for  the  sake  of  sheer  comfort  he  avoids  the  con- 
flict of  his  convictions  with  those  of  others,  who  is  afraid  to 
put  them  to  the  test  of  contact  with  other  views  and  inter- 
pretations, or  to  strengthen  them  through  contradiction,  has  no 
claim  to  the  serious  stage  and  had  better  go  to  the  comedians 
and  acrobats.  .  .  .  Even  when  we  condemn,  let  us  not  fall 
back  to  the  stage  of  screeching  barbarians,  who  dig  up  the 
hatchet  because  their  God  wears  other  festive  garbs  than  the 
God  of  the  neighboring  tribe."  x 

Through  pressure  by  the  liberal  members  of  the  state  legis- 
lature the  handsome  Prinzregententheater  has  been  entirely 
given  over  to  the  League  since  the  fall  of  1920.  Its  repertory 
is  made  up  almost  wholly  of  the  German  classical  and  the 
ninteenth-century  drama,  with  a  sprinkling  of  Greek  and  a 
few  Shakespearian  plays.  As  in  the  drama  leagues  through- 
out Germany,  the  tendency  is  to  simplify  the  staging  as  far 
as  possible  in  order  to  produce  a  greater  intimacy  between  the 
plays  and  the  people.  As  art  is  made  the  concern  of  the 
people  it  will  invariably  become  more  simple,  and  as  it  grows 
more  simple,  its  relation  to  the  people  will  be  increasingly 
intimate. 

In  addition  to  its  own  theatre,  the  League  has  the  privilege 
of  leasing  large  blocks  of  seats  at  very  reasonable  prices  in  the 
other  two  state  theatres,  the  large  Bavarian  National  Theatre 
with  its  repertory  of  opera  and  drama,  and  the  small  Residenz- 
Theater  which  is  devoted  principally  to  modern  plays.  The 
new  director  of  these  theatres,  Dr.  Karl  Zeiss,  freely  consults 

1  Munchner  Volksbuhne,  1920,  p.  34. 


THE   MIND  OF  BAVARIA  113 

with  the  League  as  to  his  repertory.  When  good  productions 
are  staged  at  the  various  private  theatres  of  the  city,  the  League 
arranges  opportunities  for  its  members  to  attend  these  also.  In 
general  it  seemed  to  me  a  very  serious  and  unobtrusive  organ- 
ization, attempting  to  establish  as  natural  a  relationship  as 
possible  between  the  drama  and  the  people  to  free  and  clear 
the  people's  mind  through  contact  with  the  drama,  and  to  keep 
the  drama  pure  by  bringing  it  before  a  simple,  naturally  re- 
ceptive audience.  Yet  the  authorities  of  the  city  and  the  state, 
largely  controlled  by  the  church,  seem  to  sense  in  the  League 
some  curious  danger  threatening  their  influence.  Whenever 
an  opportunity  presents  itself  they  do  their  utmost  to  impede 
the  League's  work. 

If  the  slightest  criticism  or  caricature  of  Bavarian  clericals 
occurs,  the  reactionary  element  of  the  audience  is  almost 
certain  to  interrupt  the  play  with  hisses  and  cat-calls,  and  on 
the  following  day  the  reactionary  papers  will  use  the  incident 
to  launch  attacks  upon  the  dangerous  radicalism  of  the  League. 
If  in  addition  there  should  appear  within  a  play  a  slur  of  some 
sort  on  the  old  monarchical  group,  a  riot  is  almost  certain. 
When  Wedekind's  Schloss  Wetterstein  was  first  played  in 
Munich,  its  daring  satire  against  the  old  society  caused  fre- 
quent interruptions  from  part  of  the  audience.  When  in  the 
play  a  persecuted  member  of  society  hurled  against  a  sleek  and 
prosperous  villain  of  the  ruling  class  the  threat,  "  I  will  have 
your  prince  whipped  out  of  his  monarchy!  "  reserves  had  to 
be  called  to  restore  order. 

During  the  Kapp  Putsch  in  March,  1920,  the  reactionaries 
of  Munich  thought  they  saw  a  chance  to  rid  themselves  defi- 
nitely of  the  League  by  treating  it  as  a  dangerous  rebel  organ- 
ization. The  military  commander  who  was  put  in  charge  of 
the  city  during  those  few  days  of  reactionary  opera-bouffe, 
ordered  the  League  disbanded  and  occupied  its  theatre  with  a 
company  of  soldiers  liberally  supplied  with  machine  guns.  At 
the  last  performance  which  the  League  was  allowed  to  give, 
the  approaches  to  all  the  exits  and  to  the  restaurant  were 
guarded  by  machine  guns  trained  upon  the  audience.     The 


ii4  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

latter  is  said  to  have  been  mildly  amused  and  to  nave  passed 
humorous  resolutions  of  protest,  while  the  soldiers  smarted 
under  the  farce  they  were  compelled  to  play.  The  Putsch 
disappeared  in  a  very  few  days  and  the  League  quietly  took 
up  its  work  again.  For  a  time  it  suffered  some  inconvenience 
because  it  was,  as  it  still  is,  dependent  on  the  regular  compa- 
nies of  the  state  theatres  many  of  whom  were  of  the  reaction- 
ary group  and  markedly  neglected  their  work  when  playing 
before  an  audience  wholly  made  up  of  members  of  the  League. 
The  new  director  of  the  state  theatres  has  put  a  definite  stop 
to  this  practice. 

Even  the  Hofbrdu  does  its  part  in  making  difficult  that  part 
of  the  work  of  the  League  which  is  concerned  with  developing 
a  proper  audience.  In  the  official  publications  of  the  League 
the  editors  frequently  feel  the  need  of  reminding  a  small  group 
of  the  membership  that  theatrical  performances  are  not  beer 
concerts  and  that  rowdyism  and  crude  jollity  are  out  of  place. 


in 

When  direct  interference  with  the  work  of  the  League 
proved  of  no  avail,  the  reactionary  elements  in  Munich  set 
about  to  develop  a  counter  league  to  save  from  contamination 
the  people  for  whose  welfare  they  hold  themselves  responsible. 
This  new  league  is  simply  a  branch  of  the  Biihnenvolksbund 
of  the  Rhine  Provinces,  though  they  attempt  to  make  it  appear 
an  organization  developed  by  the  people  themselves.  It  is 
headed  by  dignitaries  of  the  church  and  by  prominent  reaction- 
ary officials  of  the  state  and  the  city.  Its  political  activity 
consists  not  so  much  in  the  dramatic  program  offered  to  the 
members  as  in  the  extensive  propaganda  through  which  it 
warns  the  people  against  the  dangerous  character  of  the  Munich 
Volksbiihne  and  draws  them  into  its  own  league.  It  floods 
the  city  with  posters  and  handbills  describing  the  older  league 
as  a  society  of  dangerous  Socialists  and  disintegrating  inter- 
nationalists, organized  and  financed  by  scheming  Jewish  poli- 
ticians.   The  cry  against  the  Jewish  danger  is  a  very  effective 


THE  MIND  OF  BAVARIA  115 

weapon  for  the  reactionaries  in  Munich.  The  people  of  the 
city  have  a  very  vivid  recollection  of  the  prominent  part  taken 
by  certain  Jewish  politicians  in  the  excesses  of  the  two  com- 
munistic revolutions.  It  is  a  simple  task,  therefore,  to  turn 
their  resentment  into  a  general  anti-Semitic  feeling,  and  even 
to  bring  a  whole  movement  under  suspicion  if  any  trace  of 
Jewish  influence  can  be  proved. 

But  even  more  effective  is  the  propaganda  of  the  reactionary 
league  which  commands  the  people  to  turn  their  attention  to 
"  Christian  art  "  and  guarantees  a  repertory  in  that  spirit.  To 
the  ordinary  member  of  the  Catholic  Church  of  Munich  and 
South  Bavaria  a  demand  of  this  sort  is  an  order  which  he  has 
not  the  courage  to  disregard.  For  while  defeat  and  revolution 
so  confused  the  mind  of  the  average  German  as  to  throw  the 
political  situation  into  hopeless  disorder,  the  Catholic  Party 
was  able  to  maintain  its  discipline,  and  every  parish  priest  is 
still  a  local  boss.  Demands  by  the  new  league  are,  therefore, 
orders  from  the  church,  and  to  disobey  is  to  endanger  one's 
soul.  Even  so,  this  Catholic  league  in  the  heart  of  Catholic 
Bavaria  is  not  yet  quite  so  strong  in  membership  as  the  older 
liberal  league;  and  the  hysteria  of  its  propaganda  indicates  that 
the  disintegrating  influences  of  the  many  new  forces  at  work 
within  the  country  are  threatening  even  the  old  Catholic 
discipline. 

It  is  very  hard  to  determine  just  what  the  promoters  of  this 
league  mean  by  "  Christian  art."  They  send  their  members 
into  the  city  theatres  to  see  the  same  plays  that  the  older 
league  has  chosen  for  its  repertory,  but  seem  to  disapprove  of 
every  modern  play  unless  its  author  happens  to  be  a  Catholic 
of  good  standing.  The  objections  to  most  of  these  plays  can 
hardly  lie  in  their  religious  qualities,  but  simply  indicate  the 
traditional  fear  of  the  reactionary  to  face  squarely  the  forces 
that  are  demanding  new  adjustments.  They  have  put  their 
ban  upon  only  one  of  the  older  plays.  The  classical  play  of 
religious  tolerance,  Lessing's  Nathan  the  Wise,  they  have  for- 
bidden to  their  members,  not  so  much  because  they  feared  its 
influence  upon  their  people,  it  seemed  to  me,  as  because  they 


n6  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

felt  that  they  had  to  illustrate  their  idea  of  an  unchristian 
drama  by  some  concrete  example.  It  was  a  typical  case  of 
reactionary  blundering  and  afforded  general  amusement  to  the 
Munich  press.  If  the  average  member  of  this  league  were 
not  of  a  kind  to  obey  the  orders  of  his  religious  advisers  with- 
out questioning,  and  thereby  gain  the  peace  of  mind  necessary 
to  enjoy  his  Hofbrau  thoroughly,  this  action  might  have  caused 
much  trouble. 

A  young  and  unassuming  literary  priest  of  Munich,  Dr. 
Dimmler,  was  helping  the  Catholic  cause  far  more  simply  and 
more  effectively  in  the  summer  of  1920  than  the  Christian 
Drama  League  and  its  laborious  propaganda.  That  summer 
the  Passion  Play  of  Oberammergau  should  have  been  given. 
But  scarcity  of  food  made  it  impossible  for  the  little  village 
to  undertake  to  feed  the  visitors  who  would  have  come  to  the 
performances.  In  this  circumstance  a  private  theatre  in 
Munich  saw  a  chance  to  improve  its  fortunes  and  staged  a  very 
good  performance  of  an  old  French  version  of  the  Passion 
story.  The  price  of  admission  was  high  and  the  effort  too 
literary  to  win  the  endorsement  of  the  church.  After  a  short 
time  the  play  failed  because  of  lack  of  patronage.  Dr. 
Dimmler,  however,  realized  what  importance  a  Passion  Play 
might  assume  in  the  political  and  religious  entry  of  the  church 
into  the  dramatic  field,  if  only  the  play  were  composed  and 
staged  in  a  style  approaching  that  of  Oberammergau. 

He  was  the  author  of  a  series  of  short  plays  for  amateur 
performances  in  "  Christian  homes."  With  this  experience,  he 
set  out  to  dramatize  very  simply  the  story  of  the  Passion. 
Though  the  result  has  not  much  artistic  value,  it  shows  a  keen 
perception  of  the  audience  for  which  it  is  intended.  It  is 
built  against  the  background  of  that  large  store  of  pious  memo- 
ries which  every  Bavarian  Catholic  accumulates  by  attendance 
at  mass  from  early  childhood.  In  simple  manner  the  author 
unfolds  the  story  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ.  Christ,  as  the 
central  figure,  does  not  speak  a  word  or  make  a  move  not 
thoroughly  familiar  to  the  people  from  the  Lenten  services 
and  the  most  popular  sacred  legends  of  the  Catholic  Church. 


THE   MIND  OF  BAVARIA  117 

The  play  was  staged  in  the  open,  in  a  clearing  of  the  beauti- 
ful woods  of  Herzogpark  just  out  of  Munich.  The  stage  was 
of  simple  construction,  in  pageant  style.  The  arch  in  the 
center  was  so  arranged  that  by  a  few  ingenious  shifts  it  could 
be  made  to  represent  the  hall  for  the  Last  Supper,  the  Mount  of 
Olives,  Pilate's  judgment  seat,  or  Calvary.  The  large  wooden 
structures  on  either  side  gave  the  necessary  illusion  of  expanse, 
and  furnished  necessary  exits.  The  domes  formed  by  the 
magnificent  trees  round  about  had  remarkable  acoustic  quali- 
ties and  furnished  the  impressive  atmosphere  necessary  for  a 
proper  effect. 

In  spots  the  composition  of  the  play  was  very  poor.  In 
building  up  the  character  of  Judas,  the  author  evidently  felt 
that  this  figure  represented  no  sacred  memories  upon  which 
he  need  play,  and  he  gave  free  rein  to  his  dramatic  talent.  His 
idea  was  to  depict  in  Judas  a  subtle  conflict  between  love  for 
the  law  and  love  for  Christ,  and  yet  to  make  him  a  person 
reminiscent  of  the  Judas  of  the  popular  old  German  woodcuts. 
He  had  such  poor  success  that  the  actor  had  to  resort  to  weird 
pantomime  to  express  anything  at  all.  Pilate  was  a  weak, 
hen-pecked  villain  and  Claudia  a  sentimental  German  Haus- 
fran.  As  a  whole  it  was  an  awkward  dramatic  construction, 
but  attuned  closely  and  in  a  very  interesting  way  to  the  reli- 
gious memories  of  the  audience  and  therefore  one  capable  of 
unusual  effects.  The  crowds  used  in  the  play  were  very  well 
drilled  and  excellently  costumed.  Where  the  action  lagged  or 
unsympathetic  secular  scenes  threatened  the  general  atmos- 
phere of  the  performance,  the  orchestra,  hidden  somewhere 
behind  the  stage,  played  familiar  chorals  and  chants,  thus  con- 
tributing its  part  toward  releasing  within  the  audience  the 
pious  reminiscences  upon  which  the  play  depended. 

As  soon  as  the  church  authorities  realized  what  help  this 
play  might  give  their  cause,  they  backed  it  with  the  full  power 
of  the  organization.  On  the  doors  of  every  Catholic  Church  in 
Munich  and  for  a  radius  of  many  miles  around  the  city,  posters 
advertised  the  Passion  Play  and  urged  its  benefits  upon  the 
congregation.    A  gayly  costumed  peasant  throng  would  crowd 


u8  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

the  paths  to  Herzogpark  every  Saturday  and  Sunday  afternoon, 
telling  their  beads  as  if  on  a  pious  pilgrimage.  Incidentally  the 
young  priest-playwright,  when  I  saw  him  last,  was  on  the  point 
of  turning  into  a  successful  business  man,  and  was  planning 
to  incorporate  his  venture.  He  was  quite  conscious  of  the  im- 
portance of  his  play  in  the  political  struggle  engaging  Bavaria, 
though  he  professed  that  it  was  a  purely  artistic  undertaking. 

IV 

During  the  two  attempts  at  a  communistic  republic  in 
Munich  the  old  royal  theatres  were  entirely  given  over  to  the 
people.  No  admission  was  charged  and  the  ruling  commission 
controlled  the  repertory.  The  result  is  said  to  have  been  a 
laughable  farce.  The  actors  demanded  exorbitant  fees  for 
their  services  and  amused  themselves  by  confusing  the  audience 
with  extreme  caricatures  of  the  parts  assigned  to  them.  With 
the  resultant  reaction  the  old  authorities,  the  old  discipline, 
and  also  the  old  favoritism  in  respect  to  repertory  were  re- 
instated, but  the  actors  succeeded  in  maintaining  their  claims 
to  very  greatly  increased  salaries.  As  a  result  there  was  a 
deficit  of  several  million  marks  at  the  end  of  the  first  year,  and 
the  state  had  to  be  approached  for  subsidies.  The  friends 
both  of  the  Volksbuhne  and  of  the  Catholic  League  were  power- 
ful enough  in  the  legislature  to  stipulate  as  a  condition  of  the 
granting  of  such  subsidies  that  the  theatres  be  in  large  part 
given  over  to  the  needs  of  their  societies,  and  that  a  new 
director  be  appointed  in  sympathy  with  the  work  of  the  two 
leagues  and  with  ability  to  improve  the  quality  of  the  dramatic 
performances.  Inasmuch  as  the  aims  of  the  two  leagues  are 
extremely  divergent,  however  similar  their  methods  in  the 
theatre  itself  must  be,  this  represented  a  very  difficult  task. 

The  state  was  very  fortunate  in  procuring  in  Dr.  Karl  Zeiss 
a  man  who  has  proved  his  ability  through  very  good  work  in 
the  management  of  the  theatres  of  Dresden  and  Frankfurt  on 
the  Main.  I  spoke  to  him  about  a  week  after  he  had  entered 
upon  his  duties  on  September  ist,  192a     He  was  highly  enthu- 


THE   MIND  OF  BAVARIA  119 

siastic,  and  very  confident  that  he  would  be  all  the  freer  to 
develop  the  theatres  of  Munich  according  to  his  best  ideals 
because  the  varied  interests  behind  him  assured  him  of  the  sup- 
port of  every  faction.  That  undoubtedly  would  have  been  true 
if  he  could  have  maintained  the  strict  neutrality  which  he 
believed  the  situation  demanded  and  could  have  devoted  him- 
self whole-heartedly  to  his  artistic  tasks.  However,  the  words 
from  Goethe's  Egmont,  "  Safety  and  peace!  Order  and  free- 
dom!" which  he  chose  as  the  motto  for  his  program  upon  taking 
office,  lead  one  one  to  suspect  that  from  the  very  start  he  was 
too  conscious  of  the  political  pressure  upon  his  artistic  plans. 

His  first  season  has  been  one  of  artistic  rather  than  political 
neutrality.  His  best  work  is  said  to  have  consisted  in  helping 
to  put  upon  a  high  plane  the  performances  for  the  Volksbiihne 
in  the  Prinzregententheater .  In  the  other  theatres,  where  he 
had  to  serve  the  general  public  and  both  the  leagues,  he 
showed  less  courage  or  clarity  of  purpose.  Reactionary  prej- 
udice succeeded  in  hounding  several  of  his  best  actors  into 
resigning,  thus  drawing  him  into  the  political  fight  in  order 
to  protect  himself,  and  robbing  his  real  work  of  much  energy 
and  time.  It  almost  seems  that  the  political  neutrality  which 
is  essential  can  be  maintained  only  through  colorlessness  in 
matters  of  art,  and  that  dramatic  art  in  Munich  can  be  free 
only  if  liberalism  prevails  in  politics  and  gives  art  a  chance 
to  live  its  own  life. 


An  enthusiastic  group  of  young  Munich  radicals,  a  remnant 
of  the  aesthetic  dreamers  who  formed  part  of  Eisner's  follow- 
ing in  the  revolution  of  191 8,  have  set  up  a  small  theatre  of 
their  own  to  foster  "  revolutionary  art,"  and  to  develop  a 
theatre  commune  in  a  truer  sense  than  the  one  developed  by 
the  Volksbiihne.  They  too  profess  an  absolute  freedom  from 
political  purpose;  but  you  need  only  talk  with  the  leaders  or 
mix  with  the  audience  in  the  court  before  its  small  back-yard 
theatre  to  know  that  their  minds  are  so  occupied  with  protests 
against  the  established  organizations  of  society,  and  with  the 


120  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

construction  of  radical  Utopias,  that  their  lives  cannot  easily 
be  divorced  from  politics. 

The  company  is  composed  of  talented  young  professional 
actors,  whose  enthusiasm  for  the  social  service  which  they 
believe  they  are  rendering  gives  a  delightful  quality  to  their 
work.     They  have  that  extreme  paternalism  of  youth  which 
collects  a  little  audience  of  faithful  followers  to  open  up  before 
them  exact  visions  of  the  ultimate  values  of  life.     The  hall 
in  which  they  play  is  an  old  barn,  transformed  into  a  small 
theatre  at  little  expense  but  with  much  good  and  simple  taste. 
The  seats  are  crude  benches,  and  the  stage  is  so  small  that  the 
actors  moving  about  on  it  seem  unduly  tall.     And  yet  I  met 
nowhere  else  an  audience  that  felt  so  much  at  home  as  the 
people  in  this  hall.     One  of  Anzengruber's  realistic  dramas 
was  being  played  extremely  well,  considering  the  scarcity  of 
equipment.      The  audience  was  listening  not  with  the  reverent 
seriousness  you  find  at  a  good  performance  at  the  Volksbuhne, 
but  in  a  spirit  of  natural  and  happy  participation.   I   felt 
clearly  the  intimacy  between  the  actors  and  the  individuals  in 
the  audience,  as  you  might  find  it  in  a  small,  cultured  amateur 
society;  but  there  was  nothing  amateurish  about  the  perform- 
ance.   Nor  did  I  sense  during  the  play  itself  any  of  the  strong 
political  current  that  I  found  so  dominant  in  the  courtyard 
outside  and  in  the  theatre  offices.    It  was  evident  that  every- 
body was  having  too  good  a  time  to  think  of  their  political 
grievances. 

This  theatre  belongs  to  the  audience  in  a  very  real  sense. 
The  necessary  capital  was  collected  by  selling  bonds  at  twenty 
marks  (forty  cents  at  that  time).  No  single  member  is 
allowed  to  own  more  than  fifteen  such  bonds  and  no  one  is 
entitled  to  more  than  one  vote  in  the  assembly.  Members 
pay  about  a  third  of  the  admission  price  asked  of  strangers, 
which  is  only  ten  marks  (twenty  cents)  for  the  best  seat. 
Evidently  little  money  is  required  for  the  venture.  All  the 
work  except  that  of  the  actors,  who  receive  a  very  modest 
salary,  is  voluntary.  Each  member  devotes  a  large  share  of  his 
leisure  time  to  the  theatre.    They  organize  in  shifts  to  do  the 


THE   MIND  OF   BAVARIA  121 

necessary  office  work,  carpentering,  decorating,  cleaning  or 
whatever  else  is  needed. 

The  repertory  consists  almost  exclusively  of  modern  plays 
taken  from  the  life  of  the  people  of  the  humbler  classes.  But 
if  the  performance  I  saw  is  a  good  criterion,  these  revolution- 
aries are  merely  kind,  jolly  Bavarians  who  are  finding  a  very 
high-grade  substitute  for  the  crude  entertainments  of  the  beer 
halls.  Though  they  grumble  overmuch  against  political  oppres- 
sion, when  you  engage  them  in  conversation,  or  dream  fantastic 
dreams  of  communistic  heavens,  they  certainly  are  not  the  an- 
archists reactionary  papers  picture  them,  nor  such  perverters  of 
art  as  the  Volksbiihnc  would  have  you  believe.  Their  perform- 
ances are  so  good  that  political  aims  are  for  the  time  forgotten. 
In  an  interesting  manner  contact  with  art,  even  in  such  a  case 
as  this,  tends  to  clear  political  confusion. 


VI 

Munich  possesses  in  the  Kammerspiele  a  theatre  which  be- 
fore the  war  enjoyed  the  reputation  of  being  one  of  the  very 
best  private  theatres  in  Germany.  It  was  a  refined  pioneer 
in  the  interpretation  of  the  modern  drama,  and  by  ingenious 
recasting  opened  up  the  riches  of  many  old  plays  for  its  modern 
audience.  Among  its  actors  it  had  some  of  the  best  talent  of 
the  country.  Its  director,  Otto  Falckenberg,  ranks  as  a  highly 
talented  artist  and  an  eminent  student  of  the  drama.  The 
audience  was  that  rather  large  group  of  refined,  gentle,  in- 
tellectual aristocrats  of  Munich,  who  represented  a  striking 
contrast  to  the  cruder  jolly  followers  of  the  Hofbrau. 

Today  this  theatre  is  one  of  the  sad  ruins  of  the  war.  It 
has  the  same  director  and  most  of  the  high-grade  actors,  but 
its  spirit  has  been  killed  by  the  coming  of  a  new  audience. 
The  same  economic  situation  which  compels  the  theatre  to 
ask  very  high  prices  of  admission  in  order  to  exist,  has  im- 
poverished the  old  audience  and  made  it  dependent  upon  the 
drama  leagues.  The  new  audience  is  merely  a  group  of  the 
war-rich,  without  a  trace  of  the  refinement  which  made  possible 


122  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

the  former  quality  of  work  and  without  any  particular  desire 
to  develop  it.  It  has  the  old  Hojbrdu  taste  and  wants  Hojbrdu 
food,  but  wants  it  served  at  the  aristocratic  table  and  with 
the  refined  service  of  the  Kammerspiele.  It  is  a  sorrowful 
sight  to  see  Falckenberg  and  his  company  attempting  to  main- 
tain their  self-respect  by  giving  this  former  quality  to  their 
work,  but  being  dragged  down  inevitably  toward  the  level  of 
the  audience.  The  result  is  a  sharp  disturbing  discord.  It 
demonstrates  that  a  high-grade  private  theatre  cannot  exist 
in  Germany  under  present  conditions,  and  emphasizes  the  im- 
portance of  the  drama  leagues  and  of  the  city  or  state  theatres, 
in  close  relation  with  the  drama  leagues,  in  preserving  the  qual- 
ity of  the  drama. 

VII 

The  real  amusement  centers  for  the  unthinking  masses  of 
Munich,  the  "  Great  Society,"  are  the  innumerable  beer  halls, 
descendants  of  the  Hojbrdu.  Even  the  moving  pictures  can- 
not compete  with  them.  Every  night  large  numbers  of  such 
halls  are  open,  with  cabaret  programs  in  which  the  Tyrolese  or 
Bavarian  comedians  predominate.  These  halls  are  tightly 
packed  and  the  smoke  is  thick  almost  to  suffocation,  but  the 
beer  is  cheap  and  better  than  for  many  years  of  war  regula- 
tions. It  therefore  takes  but  little  ingenuity  to  win  applause 
and  laughter,  or  anger  if  you  want  it. 

The  comedians  in  these  places  are  the  real  politicians  of  the 
people.  They  seem  to  have  the  power  of  sensing  accurately 
the  temper  of  the  large  crowds  and  of  playing  to  it.  Their 
couplets  reflect  in  the  broadest  way  the  reaction  to  the  affairs 
of  public  life.  The  refrain  is  everywhere  the  same:  "  It  all  is 
a  muddle;  we  cannot  understand  any  of  it;  just  let  us  alone; 
give  us  back  the  good  old  comfort  and  the  good  old  beer,  and 
the  authorities  can  grind  along  on  their  jobs  if  they  enjoy 
them." 

I  saw  no  public  holiday  in  Germany  so  thoroughly  and  so 
universally  enjoyed,  as  the  annual  Oktoberjest  in  1920,  which 
the  Munich  authorities  ordered  to  take  place  a  fortnight  early, 


THE   MIND  OF   BAVARIA  123 

about  the  middle  of  September,  and  at  which  pre-war  beer  was 
restored  to  the  public  for  the  first  time.  It  seemed  as  though 
all  Munich  were  reeling  for  joy,  though  joy  was  not  sufficient 
cause  for  some  of  the  staggering  I  saw.  The  conservative 
papers  on  the  following  day  commented  extensively  on  the  spirit 
of  the  celebration  as  on  a  great  victory.  They  evidently  felt 
that  their  trials  were  over,  now  that  their  beloved  confederate, 
the  Hojbrdu,  had  again  recovered  his  former  robust  health. 


VII 
AUSTRIA'S  DREAM 


AS  YOU  probe  into  the  conditions  of  the  small  republic 
of  German  Austria,  you  are  tempted  to  draw  the 
conclusion  that,  while  there  are  plenty  of  men  who 
talk  and  act  like  the  Austrians  of  old,  Austria  as  a  country 
no  longer  exists  at  all.  Politically  and  economically  the  con- 
fusion is  so  great  that  all  attempts  to  clear  it  appear  like  help- 
less child's  play.  There  are  political  parties  and  subdivisions 
of  parties  galore.  The  monarchists  divide  themselves  into 
three  contending  groups,  each  with  a  determined  mind  of  its 
own  as  to  who  is  to  occupy  the  throne.  The  more  or  less 
democratic  capitalistic  class  and  the  liberals  are  so  poorly 
organized  that  they  exhaust  themselves  in  useless  theorizing. 
The  squabbles  among  the  various  types  of  Socialists  and  Com- 
munists are  downright  ludicrous.  The  Catholic  Church  alone 
seems  to  exert  some  degree  of  control  over  its  members 
throughout  all  the  parties. 

The  people  seem  to  grow  more  and  more  dumbfounded  as 
they  realize  more  clearly  how  small  a  nation  they  are  now. 
A  feeling  of  helplessness  weighs  them  down  as  though  they 
had  lost  all  power  of  self-control.  In  the  fall  of  1920  1  a 
dollar  bought  nearly  three  hundred  Austrian  crowns  as 
against  five  crowns  before  the  war.  Prices  for  food  and  cloth- 
ing had  risen  almost  in  the  same  proportion.  A  dinner  at  a 
restaurant  cost  two  hundred  crowns,  and  yet  the  restaurants 
were  filled  with  people  eating  well.  A  good  many  Austrians 
seemed  even  to  have  grown  rich  on  their  country's  misery. 

1  The  Austrian  crown  has  fallen  very  considerably  since  and  has  made 
conditions  even  more  artificial. 

124 


AUSTRIA'S   DREAM  125 

Meanwhile  the  great  majority  starved  at  home,  or  lived  in  a 
daze,  and  not  a  pleasant  daze  but  rather  that  of  a  child  severely 
punished  for  some  wrong  it  cannot  itself  measure.  The 
Austrian  is  like  a  child.  He  has  little  of  the  Eastern  fatalism, 
but  he  is  proud,  and  in  his  greatest  misery  he  his  naively 
optimistic.  If  you  question  him  regarding  the  political  affairs 
of  the  country,  he  will  answer  with  half  a  smile:  "  I  don't 
know  what  to  make  of  it.    They  are  mad,  all  of  them!  " 

The  Austrians  simply  cannot  comprehend  their  economic 
condition.  They  do  not  understand  the  exchange;  they  see 
in  it  only  the  result  of  a  fatal  war,  and  war  must  pass  some 
time  or  other.  They  are  a  helpless  lot,  and  yet  they  feel  that 
they  must  do  something  to  maintain  their  self-respect  and  to 
win  back  the  respect  of  others. 

You  hear  them  say:  "  But  everybody  loves  Vienna.  People 
from  everywhere  will  always  come  to  be  happy  and  to  smile  in 
Vienna,  to  hear  the  Viennese  opera  and  enjoy  the  Viennese 
operetta."  Vienna,  however,  has  suffered  more  than  any  other 
part  of  Austria.  It  is  a  city  of  traditions,  and  traditions  to  be 
enjoyed  today  in  reminiscence,  not  in  fact.  .  Vienna  is  cut  off 
from  the  country  that  fed  it  and  supplied  it  with  comforts  for 
visitors.  More  and  more,  too,  it  is  being  depleted  of  its  artists 
as  they  get  a  chance  to  work  at  better  money,  to  live  on  better 
fare,  and  to  play  to  less  starved  audiences  in  other  places. 

But  once  the  opera,  the  concerts,  and  the  high-grade  theatre 
are  gone,  Austria  will  have  nothing  but  what  Germany  can 
give  it.  Austria  does  not  object  at  all  to  a  union  with  Germany, 
but  it  does  object  violently  to  coming  to  Germany  like  a  beggar. 
Then  all  its  self-respect  would  go,  its  optimism  too;  and  even 
reminiscence  would  be  bitter. 

Therefore  the  Austrians  are  determined  to  save  their  art  at 
least.  Meanwhile  it  may  be  necessary  to  live  on  very  small 
rations,  but  no  outsider  need  be  aware  of  that.  They  will 
tighten  their  belts  and  hide  their  poverty  behind  the  walls  of 
Vienna,  while  they  find  some  small,  pleasant  town  in  the  hills 
and  make  of  it  a  place  to  exhibit  their  music,  their  opera,  and 
their  drama. 


i26  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

n 

In  August,  1920,  I  found  the  President  of  Austria  and  most 
of  his  Cabinet,  the  leading  business  men  of  the  country,  and  a 
dozen  of  the  greatest  intellectual  leaders  gathered  together  in 
Salzburg.  Salzburg  is  a  city  in  the  foothills  of  the  Austrian 
Alps,  rich  in  monuments  and  the  history  of  Austrian  art,  un- 
scathed by  war  and  far  from  the  actualities  of  suffering  Vienna. 
These  men  were  planning  to  resuscitate  the  country  by  estab- 
lishing here  a  grand  festival  playhouse.  To  them  this  play- 
house is  to  be  a  sanctuary,  offering  an  escape  out  of  the  miseries 
of  their  present  life  into  art,  where  they  can  seek  new  human 
power  in  the  pictures  of  the  drama,  and  new  faith  and  new 
promises  in  the  secrets  of  music.  They  think  of  it  as  a  temple, 
and  not  as  a  theatre.  They  are  disappointed  with  your  lack 
of  comprehension  if  you  look  on  their  project  as  the  establish- 
ment of  a  large  theatre,  where  the  best  plays  might  be  given 
in  the  most  approved  style  before  large  audiences,  who  come 
from  all  over  the  world  to  see  what  new  effects  can  be  produced 
by  an  artistic  people  under  stress.  They  will  launch  upon  a 
long  discourse  as  to  the  need  of  spiritual  regeneration  after  the 
degenerating  influences  of  the  war.  They  will  speak  of  the 
decline  of  the  theatre,  due  to  the  fact  that  the  box  office  has 
gained  ascendancy  over  art  and  exhibits  only  cheap,  exotic 
sensationalism.  Therefore  they  propose  to  turn  from  the 
theatre  to  the  festival  playhouse,  an  inspiring  monument  to 
art,  located  not  in  the  center  of  a  bustling  city  but  in  a  stately 
grove  on  the  edge  of  the  Austrian  Alps.  This  they  will  have 
served  by  producers  and  actors  intent  upon  ministering  to  the 
spiritual  needs  of  an  audience  capable  of  reverent  devotion. 

Clearly  this  is  not  a  theatre  as  we  know  it.  It  is  so  strange, 
in  fact,  that  we  involuntarily  suspect  it  and  look  for  other 
motives.  In  such  a  mood  indeed  it  is  possible  to  find  a  trace 
of  commercial  motives  and  not  a  little  of  national  purpose  in 
the  scheme;  and  yet  these  people  are  sincere  in  their  avowals. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  greatest  of  their  national  drama  was 
conceived  in  a  festive  ethical  spirit  not  very  different  from  the 


AUSTRIA'S  DREAM  127 

purpose  they  now  profess.  Today,  when  their  material  misery 
is  greatest,  they  are  simply  reviving  that  spirit  and  framing  it 
in  the  most  appropriate  fashion  they  can  conceive. 

Salzburg  is  very  near  Germany.  That  seems  to  them  a 
distinct  advantage,  and  is  indicative  of  their  consciousness  of 
German  relationship,  which  continually  pulls  at  the  boundaries 
set  up  by  the  treaty.  While  Salzburg  is  now  simply  a  modest 
peasant  city  located  within  the  rich  valleys  of  a  broad  mountain 
stream  fed  by  the  Austrian  Alps,  it  was  for  more  than  a  thou- 
sand years,  up  to  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
residency  of  powerful  archbishops,  who  adorned  the  city  and 
its  surroundings  with  cathedrals,  chapels  and  monasteries, 
with  a  university,  with  fortresses  and  castles,  and  pleasure 
palaces  and  gardens  of  exquisite  taste.  It  is  one  of  those  rare 
cities  of  Europe  that  the  ages  have  lavishly  favored  and  modern 
life  has  hardly  touched  at  all.  The  surrounding  hills  have  had 
centuries  to  accustom  themselves  to  the  works  of  man,  to  the 
rugged  old  castles  and  the  newer  Renaissance  buildings,  and 
have  accepted  them  as  equals  in  the  landscape. 

They  propose  to  build  the  festival  playhouse  not  in  the  city 
itself,  but  just  outside  in  the  suburb  of  Hellbrun,  where  Arch- 
bishop Wolf  Dietrich  once  spent  the  country's  wealth  in  build- 
ing a  sumptuous  palace  and  rococo  garden  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  his  many  guests.  In  the  medieval  woods  nearby  there 
is  already  a  natural  theatre  worn  into  the  lava  rock,  where  it 
is  said  Wolf  Dietrich  occasionally  amused  his  guests  with  an 
Italian  farce.  They  have  chosen  their  site  in  a  broad  clearing 
of  these  woods,  with  a  view  upon  a  glacier,  so  that  before  you 
reach  it  it  you  must  pass  the  city,  the  palace  and  gardens  of  old 
Wolf  Dietrich  and  the  deep  woods  beyond,  and  thus  are  far 
removed  from  interference  by  the  worries  of  daily  life. 

Professor  Poelzig,  the  most  famous  theatre  architect  in 
Germany  and  head  of  the  Berlin  Art  School,  who  presented  a 
marvelous  set  of  plans  for  the  playhouse,  rather  astonished 
the  judges  by  using  but  few  of  the  innovations  which  he  so 
boldly  incorporated  in  Reinhardt's  new  theatre  in  Berlin. 
They  were  convinced  at  once  that  his  plan  embodied  the  spirit 


128  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

of  the  enterprise.  He  had  absorbed  the  past  of  Salzburg,  had 
found  its  predominating  characteristics  the  still  lingering 
atmosphere  of  the  jolly  courts  of  the  archbishops  and  the  old 
Italian  baroque  monumental  buildings,  curled,  capricious,  non- 
academic.  It  was  not  the  stiff  and  decadent  rococo  of  Potsdam, 
but  rather  that  reflected  in  the  music  of  Mozart,  Salzburg's 
favorite  son.  He  pictured  a  theatre  nestling  into  this  historic 
background  in  intimate  relation  to  the  surrounding  hills,  of 
refined  baroque  style  with  picture  stages  and  rising  tiers  of 
galleries,  intimate,  a  bit  aristocratic,  impressive  not  so  much 
for  luxuriousness  as  for  the  quiet  spaciousness  which  invites 
everyone  to  come  and  worship.  The  plans  of  Poelzig  offer 
to  the  people  a  house  in  which  they  can  reverently  enjoy  the 
riches  of  the  past.  The  meadow  in  front  of  the  playhouse 
will  become  a  garden  in  which  open-air  performances  can  be 
held  and  around  which  will  wind  rococo  pergolas  leading  to  a 
miniature  theatre  for  more  intimate  or  experimental  plays  and 
to  a  recreation  hall  on  the  opposite  side. 

Only  such  plays  and  works  of  music  are  to  be  given  as  truly 
serve  a  festal  purpose.  By  that  they  mean  performances 
which  will  release  within  the  people  their  truest  hopes,  will 
make  the  Austrian  realize  his  genuine  foundations,  will  free  him 
from  extraneous  and  misleading  ambitions,  and  will  take  him 
out  of  the  confusions  of  the  present  by  making  him  conscious 
of  himself.  It  is  not  at  all  a  theatre  to  them,  but  a  national 
spiritual  forum,  expressing  the  belief  and  the  longing  which 
strongly  influenced  Austrian  and  German  art  at  its  best 
moment  and  which  has  determined  the  standard  by  which 
they  call  things  classic.  There  must  be  no  concessions,  they 
say,  to  the  desire  for  the  spectacular  or  sensational;  above  all, 
no  catering  to  delicate  aesthetic  fads  or  to  literary  oddities  in 
festive  garbs. 

Austrian  art  is  to  be  preferred  to  German  art,  and  German 
art  to  foreign.  For  the  present  they  propose  to  play  only 
Shakespeare  and  Calderon  among  non-German  dramatists. 
Of  German  art  they  will  produce  only  those  plays  in  which 
the  influence  of  the  South  has  softened  the  harsh  materialistic 


AUSTRIA'S  DREAM  I2g 

Northern  note.  For  the  first  season  the  following  program  is 
proposed:  Of  the  drama  they  will  produce  Life  as  a  Dream, 
a  symbolic  comedy  by  the  Austrian  classical  poet  Grillparzer, 
and  Schiller's  Bride  of  Messina,  the  consecration  of  tragedy 
as  they  perceive  it.  Mozart's  Magic  Flute  and  Wagner's 
Lohengrin  have  been  suggested  as  the  most  appropriate  operas, 
supplemented  by  concert  performances  of  Schubert's  Mass  in 
E  sharp  Major,  Bruckner's  Mass  in  F  Minor  and  Beethoven's 
Ninth  Symphony. 


in 


Most  impressive  is  the  devotion  of  the  artists  to  the  vision 
this  proposal  arouses  in  them.  The  foremost  have  deliberately 
rearranged  their  lives  to  devote  themselves  wholly  to  its  real- 
ization. Hugo  von  Hofmannsthal  has  bought  a  home  in  Salz- 
burg, has  settled  there,  and  has  just  completed  an  adaptation 
of  Calderon  for  presentation  at  the  playhouse.  The  composer, 
Richard  Strauss,  is  developing  a  new  style  in  his  latest  compo- 
sitions under  the  influence  of  this  new  ideal,  and  has  pledged 
to  the  festival  playhouse  the  net  proceeds  of  his  recent  foreign 
tours.  A  half  dozen  other  prominent  Austrian  artists  have 
left  Vienna  to  devote  themselves  more  fully  to  the  Salzburg 
idea.  Max  Reinhardt,  the  most  ingenious  of  German  pro- 
ducers, finding  the  masses  of  the  Prussian  capital  hopelessly 
dulled  to  artistic  effects,  has  turned  over  to  others  his  chain 
of  Berlin  theatres  through  which  he  captured  the  imagination 
of  students  of  the  stage  the  world  over.  He  has  lost  interest 
even  in  his  large  circus  theatre  before  its  possibilities  have 
been  fully  exploited;  wisely,  perhaps,  feeling  that  he  has 
reared  in  it  a  wild  and  unruly  thing  which  never  can  be  tamed 
to  serve  the  finer  human  ends.  In  Salzburg,  he  has  bought 
one  of  the  beautiful  old  palaces  and  has  settled  there,  pledging 
his  powers  wholly  to  the  festival  playhouse. 

In  August,  1920,  on  the  occasion  of  the  annual  general 
meeting  of  the  organizations  that  are  working  to  bring  the  play- 
house into  immediate  being,  Reinhardt  gave  a  performance  of 
Hofmannsthal's  adaptation  of  the  old  English  morality  play 


i3o  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

Everyman.  The  performance,  which  was  worthy  of  Rein- 
hardt's  genius,  was  given  in  the  open  square  before  the  beauti- 
ful Renaissance  cathedral.  The  enthusiasm  of  the  many  dele- 
gates, the  atmosphere  of  the  city,  even  the  surrounding  hills, 
he  forced  to  serve  as  background  to  his  play.  He  gathered 
from  Berlin  and  Vienna  the  best  actors  and  inspired  them 
with  his  purpose,  so  that  they  worked  long  and  diligently  in 
preparation  for  the  event  with  no  other  remuneration  than  the 
consciousness  of  performing  a  great  artistic  service.  He 
created  a  performance  which  everybody  present  felt  to  be  a 
true  expression  of  the  festal  purpose  they  are  seeking  to 
define  as  the  basis  of  their  undertaking. 

The  devotion  of  the  authors,  producers,  actors  and  artists 
is  one  of  the  most  convincing  evidences  of  the  power  of  this 
novel  idea.  If  those  partaking  in  the  various  festival  per- 
formances did  not  enter  whole-heartedly  into  the  spirit  in  which 
the  idea  was  conceived,  if  they  took  their  parts  in  a  professional 
spirit,  simply  as  an  opportunity  to  exhibit  their  talents  or 
increase  their  revenues,  the  playhouse  would  soon  be  turned 
into  an  ordinary  theatre  or  concert  hall,  and  not  only  its 
reason  for  existence  but,  in  all  likelihood,  its  chances  for  suc- 
cess, would  be  destroyed.  It  is,  therefore,  assumed  that  great 
artists  of  the  drama,  the  opera  and  the  concert  stage  will  look 
upon  Salzburg  as  a  place  to  which  they  can  escape  after  the 
season  in  the  ever  less  idealistic  theatres,  to  devote  the  summer 
months  to  renewal  of  their  faith  in  the  highest  elements  of 
their  calling.  It  is  proposed  to  build  small  studios  in  the  suburb 
near  the  playhouse  and  to  form  a  colony  for  the  artists  in  which 
they  may  devote  themselves  wholly  to  the  spirit  of  their  mission 
and  to  a  deeper  study  of  the  works  of  art  which  they  are  to  re- 
produce. They  are  to  have  this  living  free,  but  it  is  not  ex- 
pected that  any  other  remuneration  will  be  asked. 

The  location  of  Salzburg  guarantees  that  the  audience,  too, 
will  be  in  a  frame  of  mind  quite  different  from  that  of  the 
ordinary  playgoer.  It  is  equally  far  from  Vienna  and  from 
Munich.  It  will  be  impossible  to  hurry  on  from  "  the  city," 
take  in  a  performance  and  hurry  back  again.    The  promoters 


AUSTRIA'S  DREAM  131 

of  the  idea  will  not  have  their  efforts  spoiled  by  the  tired  busi- 
ness man,  pressed  for  time.  The  whole  plan  is  arranged  on  the 
principle  that  hurry  and  devotion  are  deadly  enemies.  They 
refuse  even  to  make  arrangements  for  a  tram-car  or  any  other 
conveyance  to  reach  the  clearing  where  the  playhouse  is  to  be 
located.  On  the  other  hand,  they  plan  an  elaborate  system  of 
well-built  walks  through  the  thick  forests  and  hills  that  sur- 
round the  theatre.  If  the  undertaking  should  prove  to  be  the 
success  of  which  they  dream,  they  hope  to  build  large  and  com- 
fortable hotels  out  in  the  suburbs  so  as  to  induce  their  visitors 
to  spend  as  much  time  as  possible  walking  through  the  gardens 
and  woods  with  a  view  of  the  glaciers.  Thus  the  evening  and 
the  festival  play  will  find  them  in  a  mood  sensitive  to  the  chords 
which  the  artist  would  strike  upon  their  souls. 


rv 

It  is  a  regeneration  through  art  of  which  these  men  are 
dreaming.  Though  it  may  at  first  seem  fantastic,  many  of 
Austria's  best  men  have  enough  faith  in  it  to  devote  their  lives 
to  its  realization.  Throughout  Austria  there  are  branches  of 
the  organization  to  propagate  the  idea.  Other  branches  have 
been  formed  in  Holland  and  Scandinavia,  and  in  the  larger 
cities  of  Germany.  To  the  idealists  of  Central  Europe  it 
represents  a  positive  and  effective  reaction  to  the  Prussian 
spirit.  They  hope  that  from  it  will  come  throughout  Europe 
a  strengthening  of  the  kind  of  faith  that  filled  the  century  of 
idealism  following  1750. 


A    FINAL   WORD 

IN  THE  preceding  pages  I  have  kept  as  closely  as  possible 
to  a  simple  narrative  of  what  I  saw  in  Germany.  I  have 
intentionally  refrained  from  formulating  a  theory  of  the 
relation  of  the  German  drama  to  German  life  since  no  theo- 
retical formulation  can  describe  that  relation  as  vividly  as 
the  events  themselves.  The  rapid  increase  in  size  of  the  new 
audience  in  the  various  drama  leagues,  the  growth  of  under- 
standing and  of  intimate  appreciation  of  the  drama,  the  sincere 
and  genuine  intensity  with  which  the  new  audience  searches 
the  drama  for  answers  to  the  questions  of  its  own  life,  are 
proof  enough  of  the  power  which  the  German  drama  wields 
over  its  audience  and  of  the  purpose  with  which  the  audience 
approaches  the  drama.  All  the  playwrights,  critics,  directors, 
and  even  most  actors  who  are  working  in  contact  with  this 
new  audience,  are  clearly  conscious  of  its  nature  and  of  its 
longing  for  a  clearer  insight  into  life. 

The  purpose  of  an  audience  determines  its  interpretation  of 
the  drama  and,  when  that  purpose  is  as  strong  and  prevalent 
as  in  the  drama  leagues,  it  determines  also  the  nature  of  the 
drama  itself  as  far  as  it  lives  within  the  audience.  This  audi- 
ence, moreover,  and  with  it  the  best  critics  and  playwrights  of 
the  country,  accepts  readily  the  statement  that  the  drama  has 
a  purpose,  provided  only  that  the  purpose  be  a  genuine  clari- 
fying of  that  which  is  most  real  and  most  worth  while  in  life. 
At  the  same  time  they  very  quickly  and  surely  distinguish 
from  such  a  purpose  the  purely  superficial,  dogmatic  moraliz- 
ing as  found  in  many  a  problem  play  and  thesis  play.  But 
they  turn  with  equal  resentment  or  else  with  a  plain  lack  of 
understanding  from  the  theory  that  the  drama  has  no  pur- 
pose, or  that  the  drama  because  of  its  purpose  to  clarify  life  is 
moral  and  therefore  cannot  be  artistic.     Art  for  art's  sake 

132 


A   FINAL    WORD  133 

when  applied  to  the  drama  destroys  the  drama  for  them. 
Nietzsche  expressed  this  attitude  very  well  in  his  "  Twilight 
of  the  Idols":  x 

"  The  fight  against  purpose  in  art  has  always  been  the  fight 
against  the  moralizing  tendency  in  art,  against  subordinating 
art  to  morality.  L'art  pour  Vart  says:  The  devil  take  moral- 
ity! If  the  purpose  of  moralizing  and  uplift  is  excluded 
from  art,  it  still  does  not  follow  that  art  has  no  purpose  at 
all,  that  it  has  no  goal,  no  meaning,  that  it  is  Vart  pour  Vart  — 
a  worm  biting  its  own  tail.  Better  no  purpose  at  all  than  a 
moral  purpose!  — thus  pure  passion  speaks.  A  psychologist 
however  will  ask:  What  does  art  do?  Does  it  not  praise, 
glorify,  select,  emphasize?  In  all  this  it  strengthens  or 
weakens  certain  valuations.  —  Is  this  only  a  by-product,  an 
accident,  something  in  which  the  instinct  of  the  artist  does  not 
share  at  all?  Is  it  not  rather  the  very  presupposition  for  the 
ability  of  the  artist?  Is  not  his  deepest  instinct  directed  upon 
art  or  rather  upon  the  meaning  of  art,  upon  life,  upon  the 
desirability  of  life?  Art  is  the  great  stimulus  to  life.  How  can  it 
be  interpreted  as  without  purpose  or  goal,  as  Vart  pour  Vart?  " 

Of  recent  German  poets  Richard  Dehmel  has  studied  most 
thoroughly  the  relation  of  art  to  life.  He  attacks  most  bitterly 
those  who  hold  to  the  theory  of  art  for  art's  sake,  who  "  con- 
sciously go  into  ecstasies  over  the  unconscious."  In  his  auto- 
biography he  says  of  such  theorists:  2 

"  To  be  sure,  they  are  quite  right,  these  gentlemen  of  the 
unconscious.  One  can  live  without  sense,  and  die  even  more 
easily.  Knowledge  is  '  in  the  last  analysis  '  nothing  but  insan- 
ity; art  is  '  at  bottom  '  nothing  but  higher  madness;  at  bottom 
everything  everywhere  is  merely  madness ;  at  bottom  even  mad- 
ness is  reasonable;  at  bottom  everything  amounts  to  the  same 
thing;  at  bottom  there  is  nothing  but  animated  dirt;  at  bottom 
every  roach  is  a  prodigy,  and  in  naivety  every  ox  is  superior 
to  the  greatest  genius." 

The  purpose  of  getting  a  deeper  insight  into  life,  of  estab- 

1  Werke,  VIII,  p.  135. 

2  Gcsammelle  Werke,  VIII,  p.  10. 


i34  GERMANY  IN   TRAVAIL 

lishing  man's  relation  to  life  upon  sounder  instincts  and  higher 
ideals  has  been  the  strongest  force  in  the  development  of  the 
modern  German  drama.  As  I  have  said  before,  the  real 
Renaissance,  its  divine,  pure  joy  in  life  and  in  the  world,  its 
playful  faith  in  man  as  the  center  of  life  hardly  touched  the 
heavier  German.  Only  out  of  such  an  attitude  to  life  can  a 
real  meaning  be  given  to  art  for  art's  sake,  especially  in  rela- 
tion to  the  drama.  Only  such  divine  unconcern  can  create 
man  in  the  fulness  of  life  and  put  him  into  conflict  with  other 
men  for  better  or  for  worse.  To  the  exclusion  of  such  a 
Renaissance  spirit  Germany  was  absorbed  in  the  Reforma- 
tion and  in  Humanism,  in  religion,  philosophy  and  learning. 
Through  these  forces  came  the  rebirth  of  the  individual  in 
Germany.  What  strength  there  is  to  the  German  expression 
of  that  time  is  born  of  an  overpowering  religious  fervor.  When 
this  fervor  lost  its  intensity  it  grew  conventional  and  dogmatic 
and  contentious,  and  spent  its  dying  strength  in  the  chaotic 
Thirty  Years'  War.  For  a  long  time  the  German  spirit  lay 
dormant,  and  German  expression  was  limited  to  imitation  of 
the  more  robust  spirits  of  its  neighbors,  to  mere  ration- 
alism or  to  a  few  flashes  from  the  smoldering  religious  spirit. 
When  Lessing  again  aroused  the  German  spirit  from  its 
stupor  he  was  most  conscious  of  his  purpose  to  reinvigor- 
ate  German  life.  Though  the  German  audience  was  not  yet 
able  to  appreciate  his  purpose,  Lessing  attempted  to  inspire  it 
by  establishing  a  national  theatre  at  Hamburg. 

The  great  characters  in  Goethe's  dramas,  Gotz,  Faust  and 
Iphigenie,  very  clearly  arise  from  a  desire  to  form  for  his 
countrymen  an  ever  clearer  vision  of  the  fundamental  forces 
of  German  life.  Without  in  the  least  detracting  from  his  fame 
as  a  poet  he  can  very  aptly  be  called  the  educator  of  his  nation 
in  spiritual  values.  Under  Schiller's  influence  Goethe  took  a 
very  vital  interest  in  his  work  as  director  of  the  theatre  at 
Weimar  and  the  influence  this  theatre  might  have  upon  the 
German  audience  as  a  whole.  The  entire  power  of  Schiller 
lies  in  the  consummate  force  with  which  he  portrayed  to  his 
people  their  own  highest  instincts  and   ideals.     He  is   the 


A   FINAL    WORD  135 

teacher  of  morality  and  idealism,  the  uplifter  of  Germany,  if 
you  like.  But  his  moral  fervor  is  so  genuine,  his  contact  with 
the  people  so  close  and  true  and  his  relation  to  the  fundamental 
spirit  of  the  German  Reformation  so  intimate,  that  to  his  people 
he  is  the  greatest  of  all  poets,  not  excluding  Goethe,  even 
though  he  has  but  a  small  fraction  of  Goethe's  real  creative 
power. 

The  Romanticism  of  the  early  nineteenth  century  dogmati- 
cally and  painstakingly  avoided  all  purpose  in  art,  but  it  did 
not  produce  a  single  drama  that  captured  the  imagination  of 
the  people.  Kleist  and  Hebbel  on  the  other  hand,  became 
great  figures  in  the  history  of  the  drama,  and  with  great  in- 
tensity again  devoted  themselves  to  its  fundamental  purpose. 
With  a  feeling  more  passionate  and  fervent  than  that  of  any 
other  German  poet  Kleist  attacked  the  problem  of  man  and  his 
adjustment  to  society.  Hebbel's  vivid  dramas  are  swiftly  mov- 
ing and  deeply  probing  dialectics  by  which  he  tries  to  solve  the 
problem  of  man's  value  to  the  fundamental  cultural  institu- 
tions. 

In  the  eighties  of  the  last  century,  naturalism  again  denied 
all  purpose  in  art,  and  in  its  longing  to  know  the  mere  mech- 
anism of  nature,  it  pretended  to  deny  all  purpose  in  nature  also. 
By  its  emphasis  it  discovered  much  in  nature  that  hitherto 
had  been  neglected.  One  of  these  discoveries,  however,  was 
the  dignity  of  the  humblest  man,  no  matter  what  his  fate  and 
condition.  Out  of  this  resulted  a  new  purpose  and  a  new  ethics, 
or  rather  the  old  purpose  and  old  ethics  founded  upon  a  new 
and  broader  faith  in  man.  In  direct  consequence  of  this  new 
faith  and  of  its  expression  in  the  new  drama  the  people  as  a 
whole  were  educated  as  never  before  to  an  appreciation  of 
the  drama.  When  naturalism  had  performed  this  function 
and  had  established  the  dignity  of  man  without  reference  to 
his  social  station,  the  emphasis  again  shifted  to  the  inner, 
more  spiritual  forces,  and  the  purpose  of  the  drama  to  clarify 
the  fundamental  forces  of  man  received  an  almost  religious 
sanction.  This  is  clearly  the  purpose  of  the  present-day  ex- 
pressionists, who  of  all  German  playwrights  best  represent  the 


136  GERMANY  IN    TRAVAIL 

spirit  that  is  trying  to  develop  in  the  drama  leagues.  When 
they  speak  to  you  of  their  work,  whether  it  be  Hauptmann  or 
Toller  or  Kornfeld  or  the  extreme  Mombert,  they  disclose 
their  purpose  very  clearly. 

The  revolution,  they  say,  if  it  is  really  to  accomplish  any- 
thing, must  build  upon  a  foundation  more  truthful  than  the 
old  structure,  more  vitally  inherent  in  the  nation.  The  gaps 
created  by  the  revolution  cannot  be  filled  in  merely  by  new 
institutions.  Man  himself,  the  individual  man,  must  first  be 
revolutionized  and  revitalized.  Here  lies  the  work  of  the 
artist.  It  is  his  function,  if  he  is  a  true  artist,  to  create  men, 
men  who  live  a  life,  real,  genuine,  strong  and  joyful.  To  do 
this  the  artist  must  enter  into  a  spiritual  struggle  with  the  life 
about  him  until  he  can  so  grasp  that  which  is  most  powerful 
and  genuine  in  life,  that  he  can  give  it  form  in  the  characters 
which  he  creates.  As  the  artist  succeeds  in  seeing  that  which 
is  truly  vital  he  rises  to  the  faith  and  joy  in  life  which  make 
his  pictures  clear  and  convincing.  The  truth  and  clarity  of  his 
picture  of  life  will  bring  the  individual  in  the  audience  into  so 
close  a  relationship  with  art  that  with  the  characters  of  the 
drama  he  will  pass  through  a  process  of  rebirth.  The  force 
expressed  in  the  drama  will  remind  the  hearer  of  the  force  in 
himself,  and  its  simple  dignity  will  give  him  the  desire  to 
elevate  himself  through  honest  struggle  and  simplicity. 

This  simple  optimism  of  the  artists  has  not  yet  found  expres- 
sion in  any  one  drama  powerful  enough  to  be  the  pathfinder  for 
the  people,  but  the  spirit  of  these  artists,  and  of  the  critics 
and  producers  who  are  helping  them,  has  seized  upon  large 
audiences.  It  is  this  which  makes  the  work  of  the  drama  leagues 
together  with  that  of  Weimar  and  Salzburg  so  significant, 
which  makes  the  relation  of  the  audience  to  the  older  Ger- 
man drama  so  intimate  and  real,  and  makes  the  faith  in  them- 
selves and  in  their  nation  so  genuinely  a  constructive  force. 


INDEX 


Aeschylus,   83 

Anzengruber,  Ludwig,  74,  78,  79,  88, 

120 
I'art  pour  I'art,  132  f 
Austria,  124  f 

Bab,  Julius,  75,  91 

Bachant,  55 

Bahr,  Hermann,  78 

Bavaria,  34,  109  f 

Bavarian  National  Theatre,  112 

Bebel,  August,  75 

Beer,  Max,  17 

Beethoven,   129 

Berlin   theatres,   60  f 

Bismarck,   23 

Bjornson,  Bjornstjerne,  78,  79,  88 

Blueher,  Hans,  50 

Blumenthal,  Oskar,  75 

Bolshevists,    15  f 

Boy  Scouts,  58 

Brahm,  Otto,   74 

Breuer,  Hans,  54,  57 

Bruckner,   Anton,    129 

Buhne?ivolksbund,  92,  114 

Burschenschaft,  47 

Calderon,  88,  128,  129 

Center  Party,  9  f,  12  f,  92 

Christian  art,  us 

Cologne,  92 

Communists,  11,  14  f,  20,  118 

Constituent   Assembly,    7  f,   96  f 

Critics,  German  dramatic,  61 

Dadaism,  19  f 

Decentralization  of  Germany,  16 
Dehmel,  Richard,  25,  133 
Democratic    Party,   VII,    7,    10,    13  f, 

15.  34 
Deutsches  Theater,  65,  80 


Dictatorship  of  Proletariat,  16 
Dietrich,  Wolf,  127 
Dimmler,   Hermann,   116 
Dostoievski,    74 

Drama  League  of  Berlin,  70,  73  f 
Drama   League   of   Leipzig,   107 
Drama  League  of  Munich,  m  f,  119  f 
Dreyer,  Max,  78 

Education,  university,  30  f 
Education,    workmen's,   35  f 
Eisner,  Kurt,  88,  in,  119 
Entertainment  theatres,  63,  68 
Erzberger,  Matthias,  9,  12  f 
Expressionists,   135 

Faculties,   German   university,  31  f 
Faculties,    Gymnasium,   48  f 
Falckenberg,  Otto,   121  f 
Faust,  71,  1 05 
Fehrenbach,  Konstantin,  9 
Fischer,   Karl,   52  f 
Food-profiteering,  5 
Franck,   Hans,   72 
Frederick   the   Great,  23 
Freie  Buhne,    74 
Fulda,  Ludwig,  78 

German  National  Theatre,  98  f 
Goethe,   22,  23,   71,   78,   79,  88,  96  f, 

119,  134 
Goltz,  von  der,  General,  58 
Grillparzer,  Franz,  78,   129 
Gurlitt,   Ludwig,  49  f 
Gymnasium,  German  Classical,  48  f 

Haenisch,  Konrad,  34 

Halbe,  Max,   74,   78 

Hamstering,  6 

Hannover,    10 

Hardenberg,  Karl  August  von,  23 


137 


138 


INDEX 


Hardt,   Ernst,  97  f 

Hauptmann,  Gerhart,  26  f,  62,  71,  74, 

77  f,  83  f,  136 
Hebbel,  Friedrich,  71.  74,  78.  88,  135 
Hellbrun,  127 
Herder,  96,  102 
Herzogpark,  117 
Heyjermans,  78 
Hofbrdu,  109  f,  114,  I21  f 
Hormannsthal,  Hugo  von,  80,  129 
Hohenzollern,   11 
Hollaender,  Max,  67 
Humanism,  134 
Humboldt,  Wilhelm  von,  23 

Ibsen,  71,  74,  78 
Idealism,  German,  23,  131 
Independent   Socialists,   14  f,  85 
Internationale,  Third,  15 

Jagow,    Gottlieb   von,    78 

Jansen,   Wilhelm,   56  f 

Jena,  105 

Jessner,  Leopold,  69  f,  84 

Jews,   13,   114 

Junker,  10 

Kaiser,   Georg,  88 

Kammerspiele  in  Berlin,  65 

Kammerspiele  in  Munich,  121  f 

Kant,  22,  23,  95 

Kapp  Putsch,  7,  9,  113 

Karlshorst,   18 

Kayssler,  Friedrich,  82  f,  89 

Kestenberg,  Leo,  89 

Kleist,  Heinrich  von,  71,  88,  135 

Kornfeld,   Paul,   136 

Krauss,  Werner,  65 

Kultur,  24 

Lauckner,  88 

Leipzig,  45,  107 

Lenine,   15 

Lessing,  78,  106,  115,  134 

Liszt,  Franz,  102 

Ludendorff,  7 

Luther,  18,  22 


Maeterlinck,  47,  78,  80 

Majority  Socialists,  7,  9  f ,  13,  14  f 

Mann,  Heinrich,  27 

Mann,  Thomas,  26  f 

Marx,  Karl,  14  f,  41 

Mehring,   Franz,   76 

Merz,  Alfred,  36,  38  f 

Moissi,  Alexander,  65 

Moliere,  78 

Mombert,  Alfred,    136 

Moor,  Karl,   52  f 

Motion  pictures,  62  f,  68 

Mozart,  128,  129 

Munich,  22,  25,  109  f 

Mystics,  22,  47 

National   People's   Party,    10  f 
Naturalists,  47,   73,   *35 
Nestriepke,  Siegfried,  90 
Nestroy,  Johann  N.,  78 
Nietzsche,  Friedrich,  22,  133 
Noske,  Gustav,  7 

Oberammergau,    116 
Oktoberfest,  122 
Opera  in   Berlin,   72 
Orgesch,   109 

Parties,  German  political,  10  f 

Passion  Play,  116  f 

Paulsen,  Friedrich,  49 

People's   Party,   11  f 

Plenge,  Professor,  45 

Poelzig,  Hans,  127 

Potsdam,  48,  128 

Preuss,  Hugo,  7 

Prinzregententheater,  112,  119 

Prussia,  dismemberment  of,  16,   109 

Prussianism,  23  f,  48  f 

Reformation,  18,  22,  134 
Reichstag,  9,  1°  f 

Reinhardt,  Max,  64  f,  80,  82,  129  f 
Renaissance,  18,  134 
Re  sidenz-T  heater,  112 
Revolution,  the  German,  7  f,  96 
Revolution  of  1848,  30,  46,  54,  I0° 
Revolutionary  art,  93,  119 


INDEX 


i39 


Rolland,    Romain,    66 
Romanticism,  135 
Ruhr,  7 
Russia,  15,  40 

Salzburg,  126  £ 

Sassenbach,  36 

Saxony,    7 

Schaiispielhaus,  Grosses,  66  f,  129 

Scheid,  Richard,  m 

Schiller,  23,  71,  74,  78,  88,  96  f,  129, 

134 
Schnitzler,  Arthur,  78 
Schopenhauer,  Arthur,  22 
Schubert,  Franz,  129 
Schurz,  Karl,  46 
Shakespeare,  71,  78,  83,  88,  128 
Shaw,  Bernard,  78 
Silesia,  Upper,  9 
Socialists,    7  f,    14  f,    25,   34 
Sorma,   Agnes,   80 
Star  System  68 
State  theatres,  69  f,  118  f 
Stein,  Heinrich  von,  23 
Steglitz,  48  f 

Stinnes,   Hugo,   9  f ,   11  f,    13 
Storm  and  Stress,  18 
Strauss,  Richard,  80,  129 
Strindberg,  August,  71,  78,  83,  88 
Students,  German,  31  f 
Sudermann,  Hermann,  63,  72,  74,  75, 

78 

Toller,  Ernst,  25,  136 
Tolstoy,  74 

Thirty  Years'  War,  101,  134 
Thuringia,  98  f 
Traveling  Scholar,  53  f 
Treaty  of  Versailles,  8,  10 


Treitschke,  Heinrich  von,  23 
Troeltsch,    Ernst,    16  f,   34 

Union    of    German    Drama    Leagues, 

90  f 
Universities,  German,  30  f 
University    of    Berlin,    36 
University    of    Cologne,   36 
University   of  Frankfurt,  45 
University  of  Hamburg,  45 
University  of  Miinster,  35,  45 

Verhaeren,   Emile,  47 

Viebig,   Clara,  80 

Vienna,  125 

Volksbiihne,   81  f 

Volksbiihne,  Freie,  75  f 

Volksbiihne,  Neue  Freie,  76,  79  f 

Wagner,    Richard,    72,    129 

Wandervogel,  48  f 

Wandervogel,  Deutscher  Bund,  57  f 

Weber,  Max,  34 

Wedekind,  Frank,   71,  80,  88,  113 

Weimar,  95  f 

Westphalia,   45 

Wilde,    Oscar,    78 

Wille,  Bruno,  74  f 

Wirth,  Dr.,  9,  13 

Witkowski,    Georg,    98 

Wittelsbach,  House  of,  11,  109 

Workmen's    educational    associations, 

35  f,  94 
World   Revolution,   15,   21 

Young   Guard,   58 

Zeiss,  Karl,   112,  118  f 
Zola,  Emile,  74 
Zupfgeigenhansl,  54,  57 


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